And just like that, folks, the 2022 MLB regular season is a sixth of the way through, and we’ve heard the word “home run” used quite a bit along the way.
With the calendar flipping to May over the weekend, we’re officially getting ourselves into the thick of baseball season. It hasn’t exactly been a full month of play just yet since the lockout forced 2022 Opening Day to April 7th. But still, there’s been plenty of time for teams to make a good (or bad) first impression this year. And for hitters, they’ve had lots of opportunities to slug some home runs.
Our April 2022 MLB home run recap will be something we’ll repeat at the end of each month, as well as during the All-Star break — you know, while we wait for the Home Run Derby to start — and at the conclusion of the regular season. The categories you’ll see below are as follows: most and fewest home runs in the month (both individual and by team), longest and shortest home runs of the month, hardest hit and softest hit dingers, and the highest and lowest launch angles for a single home run.
As usual, we’ll be adding some context while providing plenty of videos to watch. A special thanks to MLBHRVideos on Twitter for making it easy to find all these dingers, as well as OnlyHomers.com for the excellent database they maintain.
How many of you had Anthony Rizzo leading MLB in home runs after one month? Yea, me neither, but with him returning to the Bronx, you had to think things would be good with a full year to hit at Yankee Stadium. So far, so good — seven of his nine homers have come at home, and he slashed .320/.414/.800 in that situation.
Did your bingo card have C.J. Cron at the top of the home run leaderboard, too? Yea, doubtful. He’s enjoyed calling Coors Field home, where five of his seven April home runs took place. As for Jose Ramirez, he did the opposite — all but one of his seven home runs came on the road. Through the first month, he slugged .772 as a visiting player and .591 at home in Cleveland.
Byron Buxton, Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies, Joc Pederson, Aaron Judge, Yordan Alvarez, George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 6
We’ve got a pretty ridiculous eight-player tie going on here, so I decided to single out Yordan Alvarez. He performed much better on the road (258 wRC+) than he did at home (85 wRC+), and a quick peek at his quality-of-contact numbers will tell us why. He posted a 33.3% hard-hit rate and 16.7% soft-hit rate in Houston, but those numbers were 61.3% and 6.5%, respectively, on the road.
Obviously, the fewest home runs hit in the month of April would be zero, which was done by 30 different qualified hitters, according to FanGraphs. So with this section, I thought it’d be interesting to point out a few homer-less dudes that I’m most surprised by.
Miguel Cabrera joined an exclusive home run list with this 3,000th hit, but despite coming into this season with 502 career home runs, he didn’t go yard at all in April through 69 plate appearances (nice). Trevor Story‘s tenure in Boston didn’t get off to the best of starts, as he posted a 77 wRC+ through his first 74 plate appearances. The most disappointing of all, though, is probably Joey Votto. The 38-year-old is fresh off tying a single-season career-high mark with 36 dingers in 2021, yet he went homer-less in 86 April plate appearances. That’s been accompanied by a -0.9 fWAR and 42 wRC+. On the flip side, Ke’Bryan Hayes hit .333 with a 149 wRC+ and 0.9 fWAR through 81 April plate appearances without hitting a home run.
Toronto Blue Jays: 30
The Blue Jays came into this season with expectations to contend, and they look like the real deal after one month. Toronto had 11 different players slug a dinger in April, with Springer and Vlad Jr. leading the way with six each and newcomer Matt Chapman right behind them with four.
New York Yankees: 29
Wait, the Yankees are hitting a ton of home runs? Get outta here! Other than Rizzo and Judge, another seven Bronx Bombers went deep in April, and overall, seven of them hit at least two dingers: Rizzo, Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, DJ LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres, Josh Donaldson, and Joey Gallo.
Atlanta Braves: 28
The Braves also had 11 different players go yard in April, with Albies’ six dingers jumping out the most. Sure, he’s fresh off hitting a career-high 30 homers last year, but he’s putting himself on a pace to break that in 2022.
Los Angeles Angels: 27
It’s nice to see Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout getting some support in Joe Maddon‘s lineup. That includes Taylor Ward, who tied Trout for the team lead in April with five home runs. Trout beat him in the fWAR department (1.6 vs. 1.3), but Ward was actually better offensively (273 wRC+ vs. 233 wRC+).
Houston Astros: 25
The Astros had 10 different players go deep in April. Four of them slugged at least four: Alvarez, Jeremy Peña, Alex Bregman, and Kyle Tucker. Although Peña paired all those homers with just a .222 average, he still managed to post 1.0 fWAR and 128 wRC+ over his first month of play.
Detroit Tigers: 8
The Tigers actually had five different players go deep in April, but five of their eight homers came from just two players. Rookie Spencer Torkelson hit three in the season’s first month, while Javier Baez hit two.
Baltimore Orioles: 10
Five Orioles players went deep in April. Outside of Trey Mancini (one homer), everyone else collected at least two dingers. That’d include Anthony Santander (three), Austin Hays (two), Cedric Mullins (two), and Ryan Mountcastle (two).
Kansas City Royals: 11
Similar to the Tigers, the Kansas City Royals’ home run production in April was dominated by two dudes: Salvador Perez (five) and Hunter Dozier (three). After tying the Royals’ single-season home run record in 2021, Salvy is off to a hot start in the homer department in 2022.
Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates Washington Nationals: 12
Judging from preseason expectations, it’s not surprising that the Pirates and Nationals are here. It is surprising to see the Red Sox here, though. Eight different hitters slugged at least one home run in April, but just two of them did so more than once. Those two would be Rafael Devers and Alex Verdugo, who each hit three dingers.
Mike Trout: 472 feet on April 14th
Trout hit a sinker nearly 500 feet? Out to dead central? Of course he did — that dude is pretty good.
Byron Buxton: 469 feet on April 29th
As we can see above, this blast from Buxton walked it off for Minnesota against the Chicago White Sox. It was his second home run of the game and third in two days. He also hit three dingers in two days a couple of weeks before this occurrence.
Kyle Schwarber: 468 feet on April 20th
Nothing like a good ol’ fashioned moonshot at Coors, right? After leading off the Phillies’ season with a home run a couple of weeks prior, this was his third home run in four days.
Jorge Soler: 468 feet on April 29th
When Jorge Soler gets all of a pitch, he gets ALL OF IT. My goodness, this was a moonshot, and just in time to count for the month of April. I also love how he admires his work before rounding the bases. When you hit a baseball with that kind of authority, you should be allowed to do whatever the heck you want immediately afterward.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 467 feet on April 10th
I could watch Vlad Jr. swing a bat all day and never get bored. What better way to get yourself in the home run column for the first time in 2022 than with an absolute laser? Answer: there is no better way.
Christian Walker: 467 feet on April 24th
You know you’ve given up a bomb in Arizona when the baseball reaches the concourse. That’s the kind of thing that happens when you pour a fastball into Christian Walker’s happy zone, though. The swing he put on this ball was just beautiful.
Anthony Rizzo: 327 feet on April 26th
This was the final dinger of a three-homer night for Rizzo, and honestly, it’s the kind of performance that can only come at Yankee Stadium. Scroll back up to the top to see all three homers in one video.
Bradley Zimmer: 334 feet on April 22nd
This was Zimmer’s first and only home run of April. It doesn’t really matter how far it goes, though — as long as it gets over that wall, they all count the same.
Bryce Harper: 335 feet on April 13th
The reigning NL MVP got in the home run column in a manner we probably won’t see very often from him. We’re used to watching Harper hit tanks, but on this occasion, he used every little bit of Citizens Bank Park to get it out of the yard.
Alex Bregman: 341 feet on April 23rd
Just like Zimmer did a day before, Alex Bregman took full advantage of the Crawfish Boxes at Minute Maid Park. He’s become an expert at using them over the years.
Travis d’Arnaud: 343 feet on April 10th
Travis d’Arnaud loves him some oppo-tacos, so it’s only fitting that his first home run of the season came in that fashion for the Braves.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 117.9 mph on April 10th
We’ve got our first repeat. Vlad Jr. is the home run exit velocity king for April because he not only has the top spot, but he’s taking up residence in two others, as well.
Jorge Soler: 117.6 mph on April 29th
If this mammoth blast from Soler wasn’t also his hardest-hit homer of the month, I would’ve called shenanigans.
Giancarlo Stanton 116.3 mph on April 8th
This is not at all your typical Stantonian blast, as Yankees radio announcer John Sterling would say, but it got the job done. Hitting a ball on a line like that to the opposite field is just dangerous.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 114.4 mph on April 13th
This was the third and final home run of an epic night in the Bronx for Vlad Jr. Clearly, he saved his best work for last. That ball got out of the park in 0.2 seconds.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 114.4 mph on April 29th
This was Vlad Jr.’s first home run in two weeks, and he absolutely unloaded on this pitch to make up for all that time.
Alex Bregman: 91.1 mph on April 23rd
The fourth-shortest homer of the month was also the softest hit dinger. Not really a huge surprise here.
Alex Dickerson: 91.8 mph on April 23rd
There must just be something about dudes named Alex slugging softly-hit homers on April 23rd. We’ll have to be on the lookout for this next year.
Christian Walker: 92.6 mph on April 22nd
This was the only homer Walker has hit so far this year that’s had an exit velocity below 101 mph, and I guess you could say he made the most of it.
Anthony Rendon: 92.9 mph on April 12th
That bad boy just barely squeaked out of the park for Rendon’s first home run of the year, and I’m sure many are just glad he’s on the field and playing consistently again after being limited to 58 games in 2021.
Yordan Alvarez: 95.4 mph on April 25th
This is one of the few times you’ll see a wall-scraper from Yordan Alvarez.
Anthony Rizzo: 48 degrees on April 26th
Like I said before, Rizzo took full advantage of Yankee Stadium during his three-homer performance.
Jazz Chisholm Jr.: 45 degrees on April 12th
All you need to know about this homer is that Charlie Sheen absolutely loved it. That’s enough for me.
Salvador Perez: 43 degrees on April 19th
Salvy has hit so many homers since the start of 2021 that he needs new goals — like aiming for the camera man on this dinger.
Cal Raleigh: 42 degrees on April 14th
Here’s another name that was surely on everyone’s 2022 MLB bingo card, right?
Max Muncy: 41 degrees on April 22nd
There were six players in total who slugged a homer with a 41-degree launch angle in April. That includes Kyle Tucker, Zack Collins, Francisco Lindor, Shohei Ohtani, and Danny Jansen, but I went with Max Muncy to highlight here. He just enjoys hitting moonshots, too — Muncy’s other homer in April had a 35-degree launch angle.
Giancarlo Stanton: 15 degrees on April 8th
Since this ball was barely high enough to actually go over the fence, it’s not surprising that this was the home run with the lowest launch angle of the month.
Pete Alonso: 17 degrees on April 17th
You have to love seeing Pete Alonso going out to get this ball and then pulling it on a line out to left-center field.
Nolan Arenado: 17 degrees on April 15th
Nolan Arenado had himself a solid start to the season with the St. Louis Cardinals, and he torched this baseball. It had an exit velocity of 108.1 mph, which was the second-hardest hit homer of April for him.
Travis Demeritte: 18 degrees on April 29th
Travis Demeritte is the unicorn here! He’s the only one to appear on this list without actually hitting the ball over the fence.
Manny Machado: 18 degrees on April 18th
I’ve been saying this for a while, and I’ll keep saying it for years. Manny Machado has one of the sweetest right-handed swings I’ve ever seen. I absolutely love watching this dude swing a bat, especially when he launches baseballs at an exit velocity of 111.9 mph.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 18 degrees on April 10th
Vlad Jr.’s first homer of the year accomplished quite a bit. Not only was it one of the longest, but it was the hardest-hit homer of the month while also having one of the lowest launch angles. This dude is pretty good, too.
If you’re looking for our other home run recaps, you can check out May 2022 here, as well as June 2022 here.
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