PHOENIX — Corey Seager is on an absolute tear in the 2023 World Series.
First, the Texas Rangers' MVP candidate shortstop forced extra innings in Game 1 when he launched a bottom-of-the-ninth two-run home run out of Globe Life Field play in a game that his team would eventually win.
And, late-game heroics aside, the shot he just blasted out of play from Chase Field in Game 3 of the fall classic might be even more impressive.
That's because, well, this home run -- the 18th postseason homer of his career -- really was a shot.
Seriously, you're going to want to check this footage out:
According to Statcast analytics, Seager's two-run homer in the third inning of Monday night's game left his bat with an exit velocity of 114.5 miles per hour. According to ESPN, that's the hardest-hit World Series home run "in the Statcast era."
What's "the Statcast era" mean? Well, according to the MLB itself, Statcast is "state-of-the-art tracking technology that allows for the collection and analysis of a massive amount of baseball data, in ways that were never possible in the past... [that] was installed in all 30 parks in 2015."
In other words, Seager's home run was the hardest-hit ball in any World Series game since at least 2015.
But, see, here's the thing: Since the technology only goes back nine years, Seager's homer could've been harder hit than any home run in World Series history... ever. Far as we know, anyway!
OK, but what else can we say for sure about his blast?
According to Newberg Report writer Scott Lucas, it was the hardest-hit homer of Seager's Rangers career, and the second-hardest-hit of his career overall.
Also according to Lucas, Seager's Game 1 homer checked in at 112.6 mph -- at the time, the fourth-hardest-hit homer in World Series history since 2015, but now the fifth.
Yowza.
So what's the secret to Seager's success? It could be his bats, actually. But, also, he's just really, really, really good at baseball. (And he gets paid like it, too.)
