Just a few weeks ago, Josh Naylor issued a statement that caught the attention of the Seattle Mariners.
Seattle Mariners keep pace in playoff game
Naylor said after talking to Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob that he considered T-Mobile Park to be a “batsmen’s park.”
Neller's statement has good reason to attract attention. It is well known that Seattle's home court has suppressed the offense.
According to Statcast's Park Factor, which measures the impact of each stadium on offense, T-Mobile Park ranked last with a 91-year park factor, meaning a 9% lower offense rate. The next county park, Oracle Park in San Francisco has 96.
But even the toughest stadiums of baseball have batsmen that do well within their range. Naylor happens to be one of them.
First baseman has shown that he has commented since arriving from the Arizona Diamondback in the July 24 trade. He expanded his winning streak at T-Mobile Park to 11 games Wednesday night, and he hit the game safely in 16 of his 18 games in the new home stadium since the trade.
Of the 443 players who have played at least 50 sets in a stadium this season, Naylor entered T-Mobile Park’s 0.724 slip percentages and 1.162 OPS on Wednesday, according to Alex Mayer, senior manager of Baseball Communications. He hit .379 again.
Naylor obviously likes hitting in Seattle. He pointed out another factor in his liking for the stadium on Tuesday night.
“The fans were very excited. They were attracted in a big moment. It was unexplainable,” Neller said after defeating the Cardinals 5-3. “It's really cool to be a part of it. Sometimes you feel the ground shaking (because) is big. Sometimes you can't hear your thoughts because it's so loud. That's what you want, and that's what you want to play.”
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