Go Deep! The 10 Longest Royals Home Runs in 2021

There isn't much news, but we all can appreciate a baseball getting absolutely mauled.

In 2021, the Royals weren’t exactly a power-hitting team. They hit 163 home runs, which was good for 15th most in the American League…out of 15 teams. There were three teams in the National League who hit fewer, so there’s that at least. And not to add insult to injury, but their 115 home runs from everyone outside of their leader was only more than the Pirates, who hit 124 home runs in total. Yes, that’s a terribly disingenuous way to look at stats, but Salvador Perez’s 48 home runs represented 29.4 percent of his team’s home runs. Nobody else had a higher percentage. But that’s a problem for another day. Today I just want to see some massive homers. So let’s look at the 10 longest hit in 2021 by the Royals.

With each home run, I’ll give you the situation, the win probability added and a little backstory, plus the actual home run. If you’re unfamiliar with WPA, it’s the change in win probability caused by that event in the game. You can think of it as a percent as well, though I’ll list it as a decimal.

10. Salvador Perez vs. Dylan Cease, September 5

Situation: Bottom of 1st, 2 on, 0 out, 0-0 score

WPA: 0.119

Distance: 448 feet

Exit Velocity: 111.6 MPH

This one was one of Salvy’s classic first inning bombs. It was a Sunday afternoon game against the White Sox in the rubber game of a series. Perez had hit two the day before in a loss and came up in this one after Whit Merrifield led off with a walk and Nicky Lopez doubled him over to third. After a first-pitch ball, Cease tried to get 99 MPH by Perez just off the outside edge. It didn’t work.

9. Jorge Soler vs. Dallas Keuchel, July 26

Situation: Bottom of 2nd, 0 on, 0 out, 0-0 score

WPA: 0.101

Distance: 449 feet

Exit Velocity: 110.7 MPH

Soler would actually hit his final home run with the Royals a couple of innings after this one, but his penultimate was the ninth longest of the season. The Royals had won five in a row ahead of the White Sox coming to town and Soler was hot. After a 1-2-3 first for the Royals offense, Soler led off the second and crushed a ball Keuchel left out over the plate. Just 8.5 percent of a mile later, the Royals had a 1-0 lead and would go on to win 4-3 for their sixth straight.

8. Salvador Perez vs. Justin Miller, August 15

Situation: Bottom of 8th, 1 on, 1 out, 7-0 Cardinals

WPA: 0.009

Distance: 450 feet

Exit Velocity: 109.8 MPH

The Royals didn’t lose more than four in a row at any point during the second half of the season (yes, that surprised me too), but this game was the fourth loss in a row for them against the Cardinals in a series where they looked overmatched. It was rough and this game had about as much energy by the time Perez came to the plate as a wake. But Perez was sitting on 29 home runs, so a milestone is pretty fun at least. It was one of just 10 home runs he hit with two strikes.

7. Salvador Perez vs. Casey Mize, July 24

Situation: Bottom of 5th, 2 on, 2 out, 6-1 Tigers

WPA: 0.166

Distance: 452 feet

Exit Velocity: 110.5 MPH

This game was borderline crazy. The Tigers jumped out to an early 6-0 lead mostly off Carlos Hernandez, who hadn’t started to pitch especially well yet. And through four innings, Mize was dealing. He had given up one walk, an infield single and a double before the Royals started swinging earlier against him in the fifth. Hunter Dozier led off that inning with a single. Then Michael A. Taylor singled. Then Lopez drove in Dozier. Merrifield and Carlos Santana made a couple of outs to make it look like the inning might fizzle out, but Mize left 94 in a bad, bad spot against Perez and the ball went a long way. The Royals would end up winning this one 9-8, so this home run was huge.

6. Salvador Perez vs. Tarik Skubal, July 25

Situation: Bottom of 1st, 2 on, 0 out, 0-0 score

WPA: 0.132

Distance: 454 feet

Exit Velocity: 110.1 MPH

You might remember that this is about when Perez truly started taking off. And after hitting the big three-run bomb against the Tigers to help jumpstart the comeback, he started things off early against them the next day. Merrifield led off with a double and then made it to third on a Santana single. Skubal left 95 at the top of the zone but in the middle third and, well, it was no surprise what happened next. The Royals never had to worry in this one as they picked up their fifth win in a row.

5. Salvador Perez vs. J.A. Happ, June 3

Situation: Bottom of 5th, 0 on, 0 out, 4-4 score

WPA: 0.099

Distance: 456 feet

Exit Velocity: 107.6 MPH

The Royals started their season on top of the league before losing 11 in a row in May. You probably remember that. What many might have actually forgotten is that they turned it around after that and made it back to three games over .500 in early June. This was the game before the amazing first inning against the Twins. In this one, Salvy actually homered in the first, but it wasn’t a bomb. After the Twins scored two in the top of the fifth inning to tie the game at four, Perez led off the fifth and simply didn’t wait. He took the first pitch from Happ, one off the plate, as you can see, out to center field. The Royals ended up trading runs with the Twins in the seventh but got the win to improve to 28-26.

4. Michael A. Taylor vs. Kohei Arihara, April 3

Situation: Bottom of 5th, 0 on, 0 out, 4-0 Rangers

WPA: 0.071

Distance: 458 feet

Exit Velocity: 111.4 MPH

It’s easy to forget now, but Taylor started the year red hot in the first couple of games against the Rangers. He hit a home run on Opening Day, but then two days later with the Royals down early again, he came to the plate and hit an absolute bomb. The pitch was up, but Arihara didn’t even supply that much power as it was just 91. But Taylor was in a groove to start the year and got the Royals on the board to start the fifth. They’d score a bunch more and get their second straight big comeback win to start the 2021 season.

3. Salvador Perez vs. Joel Payamps, April 17

Situation: Bottom of 7th (in a double-header), 0 on, 2 out, 2-2 score (walk-off)

WPA: 0.462

Distance: 459 feet

Exit Velocity: 110.9 MPH

Payamps didn’t know it yet, but he gave up a walk-off homer to a future teammate. But it was weird because it was the seventh inning since it was the second game of a doubleheader. And it was back when the maximum capacity was still less than 10,000. And it was cold. So there wasn’t exactly a huge atmosphere is what I’m getting at. But still, a walk-off is a walk-off and this one won a game and helped clinch at least a series split with a team that was expecting to contend (and ultimately did).

2. Salvador Perez vs. Sam Hentges, May 4

Situation: Bottom of 5th, 0 on, 1 out, 2-0 Royals

WPA: 0.078

Distance: 460 feet

Exit Velocity: 114.2 MPH

May 4 was a simpler time for Royals fans. Again, we all remember the strong April, but this was the series that started the 11-game losing streak. The Royals had lost the night before in Daniel Lynch’s debut, but it was just two in a row at that point. Early in this game, it seemed like they were going to cut this off before it started to spiral. They were up 2-0 after scoring single runs in the second and third. And then Perez stepped to the plate in the fifth with the score still 2-0 and he hit an absolute bomb. The walk-off in the last one was his longest career home run…until he hit this one. A first-pitch fastball split the middle of the plate and the ball was sent to a spot I only remember a few players reaching. Things fell apart in the next half inning and the Royals didn’t score again, but for a minute, it seemed like the team at the top of the division was going to get back on track.

1. Adalberto Mondesi vs. Nick Pivetta, June 18

Situation: Bottom of 3rd, 2 on, 2 out, 1-0 Red Sox

WPA: 0.297

Distance: 464 feet

Exit Velocity: 112.6 MPH

Okay, so the Royals were good, then bad, then good again. But after getting to 29-26, they tanked once again. They lost six in a row. Then they won a game and lost another six in a row. Going 1-12 that way doesn’t get the attention of an 11-game losing streak, but it’s just as bad. Mondesi had come back for the series finale against Detroit and homered and then after a day off, played the first game of the series against the Red Sox. And with the score 1-0 Red Sox in the third and the offense looking dead again, he came up with Santana on second and Perez on first. And on a 1-1 pitch, Mondesi hit the fourth-longest home run for the Royals since 2015. The Royals had a lead, held on to it and got a win. They ended up winning that series. They lost nine in a row starting a couple of days later, but that was the start of winning three of four at least. And that little stretch all started because of Mondesi’s MASSIVE bomb that was fun to watch.

It shouldn’t be surprising that seven of the 10 longest home runs of the season for the Royals came off the bat of their biggest home run threat. But it’s still sort of striking to see. If you noticed that all 10 of the longest home runs were at home, yeah, that seemed surprising too. Still, fun to see all these long bombs. Hopefully, we get to see more of these soon.