Red Sox: Nathan Eovaldi didn’t give up the longest home run in Fenway Park history

No, it’s not true that Boston Red Sox right-handed pitcher Nathan Eovaldi gave up the longest home run in Fenway Park history to Rowdy Tellez.

Social Media was ablaze Thursday night when Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Rowdy Tellez blasted a mammoth shot into the right-field seats against Nathan Eovaldi. This time the chatter wasn’t focused on the outrage of yet another Boston Red Sox starter digging their team into an early hole. It was the stunning report of how far the ball traveled that caught everyone’s attention.

According to Statcast, the home run by Tellez was estimated at 505 feet. That would make it the longest home run in the history of Fenway Park, surpassing the ball that Ted Williams once hit to the infamous red seat.

It was an amazing accomplishment, putting Tellez in a rare group of hitters who could boast about crossing the 500-foot mark as well as topping one of the Splendid Splinter’s esteemed records. The only problem – the report wasn’t accurate.

Check out the home run from Tellez. Sure, it’s a breathtaking moonshot that easily clears the bullpen area but it’s nowhere near 500 feet. It’s a lot closer to 400. The ball appears to travel over a section of the wall tagged as 380 feet and lands, what, maybe 15 rows back? 20 rows? It’s very clearly not 125 feet beyond the wall.

Statcast has since removed the Tellez homer from their home run distance leaderboard, which lists the 50 longest of the season. The 432-foot homer from St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Harrison Bader currently ranks 50th on the list, meaning that Tellez’ blast against Eovaldi either fell short of that or Statcast hasn’t updated their list with the revised distance yet (as of the time of this writing).

For what it’s worth, ESPN’s boxscore from last night shows Tellez’ home run unofficially at 433 feet. An impressive distance, for sure, yet far from record-setting. It wasn’t even the longest home run of the game! Freddy Galvis hit a 434-foot home run against Ryan Brasier in the eighth inning, a distance that Statcast ranks 47th this year.

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So, no, Eovaldi does not have the misfortune of giving up the longest home run ever hit at Fenway. Although at the rate he’s going, we may have to wonder if he’ll end up coughing up the most total home runs. Eovaldi has already allowed six homers through his first three starts.

As for Tellez, the brief period during which he was compared to Ted Williams may have been the highlight of his young career. Don’t feel too bad that he had that honor ripped away from him though. Tellez may not be claiming any records but he can still hit bombs. The 449-foot homer that he hit against Baltimore Orioles right-hander Miguel Castro on April 2 still ranks as the 15th longest of the season. The 24-year old seems likely to add plenty more tape measure worthy shots in his career.

Where did the incorrect estimate come from? How could Statcast be so far off? Those answers have yet to be provided and perhaps they never will be. It ended up being a farce but the tale of the 505-foot home run provided a great deal of excitement for those of us on MLB Twitter during the game.