Melvin Upton Jr. is experiencing a bit of a career revival with the San Diego Padres.
The artist formerly known as B.J. Upton is putting together his second consecutive rock-solid season (1.5 WAR per FanGraphs) with San Diego, after two very disappointing seasons with the Atlanta Braves in 2013 and 2014.
On Tuesday night against the Baltimore Orioles at Petco Park, Upton continued his impressive play with the Padres, supplying incredible offensive and defensive highlights that were just minutes apart.
It began with a home run to dead-center to lead off the bottom of the second inning that traveled an estimated 465 feet. That’s the longest Padres homer Statcast has tracked (since that data became available), and is the eighth-longest homer of the 2016 MLB season.
And then in the top of the second, Upton leaped over the wall in center field to rob the Orioles’ J.J. Hardy of a dinger. Upton even made a great throw all the way back to first base to turn a double play on the home run-robbing play.
Here’s video of the homer and the homer-robbing, with some Statcast metrics included:
.@MelvinUptonJr – still a Bossman. https://t.co/SZzJUNsI8g pic.twitter.com/i1nB2M2lJJ
— MLB GIFS (@MLBGIFs) June 29, 2016
That’s actually the third time Upton has robbed a homer this season, good for tops in MLB:
Melvin Upton Jr. also now has 3 HR robberies this season, most in MLB https://t.co/sePt8rHpKQ
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) June 29, 2016
Despite Upton’s big night, the Padres still lost the game 11-7.
[MLB.Com]