In the midst of a lost season for the Toronto Blue Jays, fans need to try to find the joy in the success stories. Infielder Ernie Clement has been one of them.
The 28-year-old, who has worked his way up to the major-league roster after signing a minor-league contract with the team in 2023, is becoming an every-day player in Toronto for the first time in his career. On Thursday against the Los Angeles Angels, he proved exactly why.
At the plate for his first at-bat of the evening in the bottom of the second, Clement was down to his final strike when Angels right-hander Mike Baumann threw a high pitch seemingly way out of the zone.
Not a problem for Clement, though, as he managed to send it hard over the left-field wall for a two-run homer — his second in as many games and his 11th of the season.
At 4.6 feet off the ground, that was the highest pitch hit for a home run in Blue Jays history, and third highest in the MLB in the pitch tracking era (since 2008), per Sportsnet Stats.
The Rochester, N.Y. native isn’t the first Blue Jay to find success off an egregiously high pitch — Kevin Pillar famously doubled off a pitch from Baltimore Orioles’ Chris Tillman that rose 4.587 feet above the plate during the 2016 AL Wild Card game.
In a strange twist, Pillar was on the field for Clement’s blast as he now plays centre field for the Angels.
Though Clement may not go down in Blue Jays history the way Pillar will, he’ll always have that extra .13 feet to serve as bragging rights.