In an /r/baseball thread yesterday, someone asked this question of Walker Jenkins' first career home run. And I thought, hey, we should be able to figure this out with a simple Baseball Savant search!

Incredibly, it's not even the slowest first-homer pitch for the last two weeks. Milwaukee's Luis Lara hit his first career home run on a 36.9 mph pitch from Leo Rivas on 8/18, during a shellacking of the Mariners. Jenkins' homer came off a 37.4 mph pitch. video

Both are beat out by just one other player: Carlos Cortes, of the Athletics, hit his first homer off of a 34.8 mph pitch from Scott Kingery during a blowout of the Angels. Funnily enough, Cortes has also allowed 4 homers as a pitcher. video

No other players have hit their first homer on a sub-40 mph pitch...in the data set, which only goes back to 2008, and actual statcast data starts in 2016. However, they're all very recent (more on this below). Cortes is 29, a second year player, and currently below replacement level, and Luis Lara is not a power hitter. So, Jenkins could very well be the best slugger on the list by the end of his career.

Mildly interesting tangents:

• Jenkins' 38 degree launch angle is tied for the second highest. First place goes to Kyle Higashioka on the first recorded event, against Frank Schwindel in 2022 - a 39 degree launch angle. The other 38 degree homer was Griffin Conine off Tyler Heineman on 8/9.

• Miguel Rojas is the only player to both homer off of and allow a homer off of a sub-40 mph pitch, all in 2025. He allowed such homers on 4/12 and 5/13, then hit one on 6/14, which is kind of eerie.

• LaMonte Wade is the only lefty to allow a homer on a sub-40 mph pitch (hit by Denzer Guzman). Incidentally, this is also the highest exit velo (106.1 mph), lowest launch angle (20 degrees), and shortest distance (363 feet).

• Of the 15 sub-40 mph pitches hit for home runs in the search, one each occurred in 2022 and 2024, and the rest have come in the last two seasons. Maybe Noodle-Arm Flanagan accomplished this feat in 1912, but I'm going to assume not unless someone tells me otherwise.

• Additionally, these events are clustered late in the year. In 2026, all seven have happened since 7/28. In fact, the data tells me that you can only hit a homer off a sub-40 mph pitch before 7/28 if one of two things are true: either you are the first person to ever hit such a homer, or Miguel Rojas is involved.

statcast search

Acton makes sense, he's actually been very good in AAA since returning from injury and he's already on the 40-man roster.

Ross is a bit of a surprise in terms of position players. I would have expected either Roden or Emmanuel Rodriguez, but I suppose they wanted another infielder.

Also possible they wanted to callup someone who they are fine with being on the bench a lot, and Ross fits that bill. Ben Ross profiles as a superutility player in the vein of Ryan Kreidler with solid defense at multiple infield and outfield positions, but some troubling swing and miss.

The Twins will have to release someone from the 40-man roster in order to add Ben Ross.

Assuming Buxton is shut down for the rest of the regular season, he’s sitting at 25 HR and 46 RBI’s. A ratio of 1.84, that looks to be lower than

According to this: https://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/10785.html

He would behind Bond’s 1.88 (73 HR, 137 RBI) season.

Is this right? Can anyone else find different?

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Game ended at 9:09 PM.

I'm taking my daughters (10,4,1) to the AAA game in Omaha on Friday and I'd like to try to get some autographs for my girls.

Who is on the roster that I should be on the lookout for?

I have a good variety of 2025/2026 cards in addition to getting a ball signed

Old friend has just been acquired for cash from the Rays.

Tigers (63-73) @ Twins (65-72)

First Pitch: 6:40 PM at Target Field

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Game ended at 9:09 PM.

Remember to sort by new to keep up!

Tigers (63-73) @ Twins (65-72)

First Pitch: 6:40 PM at Target Field

Just shut him down. Give him the surgery before the season is over to give him the maximum amount of rehab time. If they do not, I suspect he will still be recovering on Opening Day.

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Game ended at 3:28 PM.

Another disappointing season for Buck.

White Sox (72-63) @ Twins (64-72)

First Pitch: 1:10 PM at Target Field

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Game ended at 3:30 PM.

Remember to sort by new to keep up!

Right now, the Twins are 31-36 against teams above .500. These are some notable teams that have a worse record than ours:

Chicago White Sox

Cleveland Guardians

Toronto Blue Jays

Detroit Tigers

Philadelphia Phillies (basically the same win percentage)

San Diego Padres

Pittsburgh Pirates

Arizona Diamondbacks

Miami Marlins

Washington Nationals

Honorable mentions: the Dodgers have the same amount of losses, but only two more wins than the Twins.

It's obviously not necessarily indicative of a good baseball team or not, but all the teams (except the Tigers) have a better record than the Twins. I've noticed this on the season as a whole and just thought it was an interesting wrinkle to the season.

White Sox (72-63) @ Twins (64-72)

First Pitch: 1:10 PM at Target Field

7th inning stretch of every Twins game, I’m reminded of how much I miss the Mexican Hat Dance. Bump, bump.

So many corners of Target Field smelling like hot pee today. 🤢Can they get out the pressure washer! also, don’t pee in the stadium! The Women’s bathroom too!!!

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Game ended at 3:48 PM.