Wood taking aim at leaderboard, record book with early homer barrage

PITTSBURGH – The major league home run leaderboard may not matter much in mid-April, but there’s nothing wrong with taking a glance at the list even at this early stage of the season. Especially when a particularly notable name can be found there: James Wood.

With his monstrous, leadoff blast Tuesday night in the Nationals’ 3-0 win over the Pirates, Wood notched his sixth home run of the young season, his fifth in his last eight games.

That’s good enough for a nine-way tie for second-most in the majors right now. Athletics first baseman Tyler Soderstrom surprisingly leads the way with eight homers. Wood joins a star-studded list with six that includes Corbin Carroll, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Aaron Judge, Kyle Schwarber, Fernando Tatis Jr., Tommy Edman, Wilmer Flores and Mike Trout.

That’s some impressive company for a 22-year-old.

“It’s cool,” Wood said, showing off his usual go-with-the-flow mindset. “But it’s still early and it’s a long season, so you’ve just got to stay consistent. That’s what makes those guys so good.”

Wood has already hit some eye-popping blasts this season, but Tuesday’s took the cake. After working the count full against Pirates starter Mitch Keller, he launched a 3-2 fastball over the PNC Park stands in right-center field, the ball landing on the concourse and then bouncing out of the ballpark altogether and heading in the general direction of the Allegheny River.

Official distance: 445 feet. Official exit velocity: 112.6 mph. That makes it officially the longest and hardest-hit homer of Wood’s young career.

“Beautiful swing,” manager Davey Martinez said. “You can’t hit a ball better than that.”

It was also Wood’s first career leadoff homer, which isn’t surprising because it was only the second time he’s ever led off in the big leagues. With CJ Abrams on the 10-day injured list with a hip flexor strain, and with Alex Call getting the night off, Martinez opted to move Wood up to the No. 1 position in his lineup, hoping for some instant offense.

That’s exactly what Wood provided, giving the Nationals a 1-0 lead before Jake Irvin ever took the mound.

“I just heard the crack of the bat, and that's it,” said Irvin, who was in the dugout going through final preparations for his start. “The guy’s a freaking tone-setter. It makes my job a lot easier when we have a guy who can come out and set the tone like that.”

Take a look at Wood’s spray chart so far this year, because it immediately shows how he’s hitting the ball with tremendous authority when he gets it in the air.

Wood has only six singles, and in case the ball has first touched the ground in the infield. In other words, all have been well-struck ground balls. All three of his doubles, meanwhile, have reached the wall in either left or center field, each of them just a few feet shy of turning into home runs.

And of those six homers, four have been hit to left-center field, with two now hit to right-center field. He has yet to pull a ball in the air anywhere close to the right field line, and the Nationals are perfectly fine with that.

“The biggest thing is to stay on the baseball,” Martinez said. “A lot of people talk about him not pulling the ball maybe. But he’s really good at staying inside the baseball and driving the ball from left-center to right-center field. Again tonight, he drove a ball to right-center field, which is awesome. As long as he knows that when he stays in the middle of the field, he’s going to be really good, he’s going to hit balls a long way.”

It's turning into an historic month for Wood. The Nats still have 14 games to play before the calendar shifts to May. With six homers on the books already, he’s got plenty of time to chase down the club record for home runs at the end of April: 11, set by Ryan Zimmerman in 2017. Bryce Harper is the only other player in Nats history to hit eight or more homers in March/April, doing it four times between 2013-18. CJ Abrams (2024) and Alfonso Soriano (2006) each hit seven homers before May.