The Yankees have made a habit out of this in 2026, and Wednesday night in Chicago was just the latest example. Spencer Jones, the 6-foot-7 outfielder the Yankees called up in May after Jasson Dominguez went down with an AC joint sprain, put a charge into a pitch that Statcast reportedly measured at 412 feet for a 3-run homer that blew the game open early.
Jones rounds the bases after his 3-run shot put the Yankees up on the scoreboard graphic.
That's the power the Yankees envisioned when they leaned on Jones to help fill the outfield mess, pairing him with Aaron Judge as a pair of 6-foot-7 mashers. He came up hitting.258 with a.958 OPS and an MLB-best 41 RBI across 33 Triple-A games, and swings like Wednesday's are exactly why. One Barstool account even joked the distance reading felt light for how far the ball actually traveled.
A reaction to just how far Jones's homer actually looked off the bat.
Statcast would somehow call this 412 feet
On the mound, Cam Schlittler kept doing what he's done since his breakout 2025 rookie run — the one that included an 8-inning, 12-strikeout gem in the Wild Card round against Boston. Schlittler mixes 3 fastball variations that tunnel off each other, but it's the curveball that's turning heads now, a pitch that reportedly froze White Sox hitters looking multiple times.
The curveball sequence that had Barstool's White Sox and Yankees voices both buzzing.
White Sox fans watching from the other side aren't panicking, exactly, but they're not pretending this is fun either. One prediction that the first-inning strikeout of the game's leadoff man would be "a preview of things to come" ended up looking pretty accurate. Still, there's a case the Sox weren't just rolling over — they were reportedly letting it rip and taking real hacks against Schlittler even while falling behind, for whatever that's worth against a lineup that had already spotted the Yankees a 4-run cushion.
There's also a broader thread running through the Barstool coverage this year: even with results like this, this particular Yankees team doesn't scare some White Sox voices the way past Yankees squads have, with the caveat that a productive trade deadline for Chicago could change the calculus. That's the real subplot here — the Yankees keep winning games like this comfortably, but the gap between "good team" and "team everyone fears" is still apparently up for debate among the people watching it happen closest.
For now, the formula is simple and it's working: Jones providing thump from a lineup spot the Yankees didn't expect to need this much, Schlittler carving up lineups with a curveball that's reportedly becoming a true weapon, and a bullpen that gets called on to finish the job once the starter's pitch count climbs. If this keeps up, both storylines — the slugging rookie and the emerging front-of-rotation arm — are going to matter a lot more than one blowout in Chicago.