Such a mighty wallop: How does Matt Davidson's mammoth home run stack up?

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The wind at Wrigley Field was blowing straight in and fly balls weren’t carrying well in batting practice. And still, Matt Davidson socked the sixth-longest home run in the majors this season, a booming eighth-inning blast onto Waveland Ave. that traveled 476 feet, according to MLB’s StatCast. 

“Today, it was kind of tough to get the ball out of here,” right-hander Anthony Swarzak said, “unless you’re Matt Davidson.”

The longest home runs of 2017, per StatCast, have been hit by:

Aaron Judge (495 feet)
Kennys Vargas (483 feet)
Mark Reynolds (482 feet)
Jake Lamb (481 feet)
Charlie Blackmon (477 feet)
Matt Davidson (476 feet)
Brandon Moss (474 feet)
George Springer (473 feet)
Kennys Vargas (471 feet)
Kyle Schwarber, Manny Machado, Ryan Zimmerman (470 feet)

The longest home run hit by a White Sox player in 2017 was a 464-foot blast socked by Jose Abreu on May 19. Abreu and Avisail Garcia shared the longest home run hit by a White Sox player since 2015 (when Statcast began tracking home run distances) with 465-foot shots in 2016 until Davidson’s dinger on Monday. 

Not only was it a jaw-dropping home run, but Davidson’s dinger came after falling behind 0-2 against a reliever in Koji Uehara who had only allowed two home runs in 32 innings this year. Davidson, who’s struck out in nearly 40 percent of his plate appearances this year, took an 0-2 fastball in off the plate and laid off a 1-2 splitter in the dirt. Uehara’s 2-2 pitch was a hanging splitter that wound up diving middle-in before being launched out of Wrigley Field. 

The home run, too, was an important insurance run as the White Sox aimed to stop a nine-game losing streak in front of a raucous Crosstown crowd of 40,849. The White Sox went on to win, 3-1. 

“I was pretty pumped up,” Davidson said. “This is the closest thing to a playoff game or like a really meaningful game. They are all meaningful. This rivalry it seemed like every pitch there was some sort of just everything was weighing on everybody, the fans, us, especially those last couple of innings. I was pumped up in the moment and excited we could get that insurance run.”

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