After canceled flight, N.Y. family lands Sánchez's longest MLB homer of '24

MIAMI -- When the Buckley family’s flights from South Florida back home to upstate New York got canceled on Aug. 5 due to Tropical Storm Debby, they decided to purchase tickets for the series opener between the Reds and Marlins.

Tim and Ashley, along with their three kids, Teagan (15), Luke (12) and Piper (9), try to visit every ballpark that they can. loanDepot park, home of the Marlins, would become their ninth MLB venue.

As they took their seats in Section 137, located high up in the right-center field home run porch, Luke looked over to his dad and asked, “Wouldn't it be cool if a home run came up here?”

“I'm like, ‘That would have to be a really long home run, bud,’” Tim recalled to MLB.com.

A lifelong Red Sox fan, Tim clearly wasn’t aware of Marlins right fielder Jesús Sánchez’s prodigious raw power.

Sánchez would go on to launch the farthest-hit homer (480 feet) by a Major Leaguer this season during the sixth inning of a 10-3 loss to the Reds.

“I saw it and I go, ‘That one's getting pretty close to us,’ and then it kind of just like flew over our heads and I was like, ‘Holy cow, that was a dinger!’” said Tim, who ended up corralling the bouncing ball.

With Miami trailing 7-0, Sánchez didn’t miss on right-hander Jakob Junis’ center-cut changeup to lead off the frame, sending the 84.6 mph pitch to the last rows of the ballpark. With an exit velocity of 116.4 mph, it was the hardest-hit ball of his career.

“For our pitching staff or our team or whatever, it's just one run, thankfully, but yeah … you could tell,” Reds manager David Bell said. “I didn't know how far it went or anything like that, [but it] doesn't surprise me.”

Since Statcast began tracking in 2015, Sánchez’s mammoth blast ranks second in distance at loanDepot park, behind then-Rays outfielder Avisaíl García's 485-foot shot on May 14, 2019. Sánchez’s homer is the longest homer by a Marlin in the ballpark’s history.

At the time, the 26-year-old Sánchez was tied with Braves slugger Jorge Soler for the MLB lead in average home run distance (423 feet) among players with at least 10 homers this season. Only seven other Major Leaguers had hit a home run at 116 mph or greater in 2024, a list that includes likely MVP finalists Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge.

According to Baseball Savant, Sánchez entered the series opener in the 96th percentile for average exit velocity (93.4 mph) and 95th percentile in hard-hit percentage (53.1%).

“I knew right away,” Sánchez said via interpreter Luis Dorante Jr. “I didn't have to, like, look at the ball. I put my head down, started jogging around the bases. It was a really good feeling.”

Sánchez is no stranger to majestic homers. He launched one 496 feet at Coors Field on May 30, 2022, for the longest homer of that season at the time.

Until that tater, Sánchez hadn’t gone deep since July 23, a stretch of 11 games. During that span, he was batting .191/.244/.262 with three extra-base hits, 13 strikeouts and three walks in 45 plate appearances. On Aug. 3, however, Sánchez showed signs of breaking out of the slump by tallying a three-hit game in Atlanta. The Aug. 5 dinger marked his 13th of the year, which is one shy of his career-high single-season total.

“Sánchez has that power,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “He has the ability to hit the ball out of the ballpark to all sides of the stadium, line to line. He's got real raw power. I think he's got some of the best power in the game, so it's good to see.”

For a special home run like this one, Sánchez wanted to add the ball to his collection. So postgame, he met the Buckleys and offered them a signed baseball with “a lot of love and a lot of special wishes.”

The Buckleys, who weren't able to fly out until Aug. 7, were more than happy to oblige. After catching a big fish on Aug. 5, they planned on spending Aug. 6 reeling in some more while fishing.

“When we showed up to the park, we were just interested in catching a game,” Tim said. “We actually found a ball up there from batting practice or something, so we were pretty excited when one came flying. We didn't even think it'd be up there, and then have it bounce around and be lucky enough to catch it, it was just a blessing for all of us.”