Big swings in MLB

Ketel Marte and Josh Naylor opened the week with the kind of swings that change a box score in one pitch and one at-bat. (mlb.com 1) (mlb.com 2) Marte led off Arizona’s April 11 game at Philadelphia with a home run on Taijuan Walker’s first pitch, a 406-foot shot to right-center that put the Diamondbacks ahead 1-0 before the Phillies came to bat. MLB’s Statcast game clips listed it as his second homer of the season. (mlb.com) (espn.com) The 443-foot blast tied to Marte in the social clip came from an earlier Statcast highlight on May 9, 2025, when MLB measured one of his homers at 443 feet and 113 miles per hour. The recent first-pitch homer itself was shorter, at 406 feet. (mlb.com 1) (mlb.com 2) Naylor’s bigger outburst came Monday, April 13, in Seattle, where he homered in each of his first two at-bats against Houston right-hander Mike Burrows. His first was a three-run drive in the first inning, and his second was a 432-foot, two-run shot in the third that stretched the Mariners’ lead to 5-0. (mlb.com 1) (mlb.com 2) MLB’s game story said Naylor had gone his first 66 plate appearances of 2026 without an extra-base hit before the two-homer game. His player page shows he joined Seattle after splitting 2025 between Arizona and the Mariners. (mlb.com) (mlb.com) The league’s weekly awards landed on a pitcher in the American League and a young slugger in the National League. MLB announced Monday that Los Angeles Angels right-hander José Soriano and Washington Nationals outfielder James Wood won their first career Player of the Week honors. (mlb.com) Soriano earned the American League award after two starts totaling 15 innings, 20 strikeouts and a 0.60 earned run average for the week ending April 12. ESPN’s game log shows those starts came against Atlanta on April 6 and at Cincinnati on April 12, and he allowed one earned run across both outings. (mlb.com) (espn.com) Wood took the National League award after hitting.545 with six extra-base hits and eight runs batted in during the same week, according to MLB’s announcement. The 23-year-old had already broken out in 2025, when MLB highlighted his power and on-base production during his first full stretch in Washington. (mlb.com) (mlb.com) A first-pitch homer, two home runs in two trips, and a pair of first-time weekly winners made for the same lesson in mid-April: baseball’s early season can turn on a handful of swings and two dominant starts. (mlb.com) (mlb.com) (mlb.com)