Freddie Freeman’s 438‑footer

Freddie Freeman’s 438-foot blast was not just a long home run. It was the moment a rout turned into a spectacle. In the top of the third inning on April 6, Freeman got a 90.5 mph sinker from Toronto left-hander Josh Fleming and drove it to right-center at 108.5 mph with a 35-degree launch angle. Statcast measured it at 438 feet. The shot scored Shohei Ohtani and pushed the Dodgers ahead 4-1 at Rogers Centre (mlb.com). That swing landed because the game was already tilting. Teoscar Hernández had opened the scoring with a two-run homer off Max Scherzer in the first, and Toronto had managed only a single run back. Freeman’s drive made clear that Scherzer’s short night was not going to be the story. The Dodgers kept hitting after Scherzer exited after two innings, and by the end they had turned a World Series rematch into a 14-2 demolition (espn.com). The homer also fit the shape of the inning and the game. Freeman came up with one out and Ohtani on base, then hit his third home run of the young season. Later he added an RBI double, finishing 2 for 4 with a walk and three runs driven in. On a night when Los Angeles piled up 17 hits and five home runs, Freeman’s swing was the loudest single blow, but not an isolated one. It was part of an offense that has looked fully operational from the first week of April (espn.com; mlb.com). That is why the clip spread so quickly. MLB pushed the video almost immediately, first as a Statcast highlight and then as a standalone homer clip, which gave fans the cleanest version of what they wanted to see: one pitch, one full left-handed finish, one ball disappearing into the seats (mlb.com; mlb.com). MLB’s YouTube account framed it even more plainly, calling it “LONG GONE,” and added one useful bit of context: it was Freeman’s 99th home run as a Dodger (youtube.com). That number matters because Freeman is no longer just the polished hitter who came over from Atlanta and fit neatly into a star-packed lineup. He is now deep enough into his Dodgers run that milestones come attached to this uniform too. ESPN’s player page lists him at 36, still producing in the middle of the order, and the early 2026 line already showed the usual mix of average, power, and run production before this game even ended (espn.com). The bigger surprise was not that Freeman hit one a long way. He has always had that in him. The surprise was how little resistance Toronto offered once the Dodgers started lifting balls. Dalton Rushing hit two solo homers for his first career multihomer game. Ohtani went deep too. By MLB’s game story, the Blue Jays had not allowed 14 runs and five home runs at Rogers Centre since May 25, 2019, when San Diego hit seven in a 19-4 blowout (mlb.com; espn.com). So the 438-footer became the clip, but it was really a snapshot of a machine already in motion. Freeman’s ball left the bat at 108.5 mph, cleared 438 feet, and disappeared into a night that ended with Toronto using catcher Tyler Heineman to pitch the ninth, the only inning the Blue Jays got in order (mlb.com; espn.com).