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The Giants and Padres turned the first MLB game in Mexico City into a home run derby

What do you get when you let big league hitters loose at an altitude over 2,000 feet higher than Coors Field? 11 homers, that’s what.

By Chris Landers
Manny Machado of the San Diego Padres celebrates after hitting a home run in the fifth inning during the game between the San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres at Alfredo Harp Helú Stadium on Saturday, April 29, 2023 in Mexico City, Mexico. Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images

We already knew that Saturday’s game between the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres would be historic. The latest installment in MLB’s World Tour, it marked the first time a regular-season Major League game would be played in Mexico City.

But we had no idea it would make a different kind of history as well: The two teams combined for 30 hits and a staggering 11 home runs — just two off the all-time big league record — in a 16-11 Padres win.

Although in hindsight, maybe we should’ve seen this coming. The series is being played at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú, a 20,000-seat stadium that also happens to be some 7,349 feet above sea level — more than 2,000 feet higher than Coors Field. Combine that with outfield dimensions measuring just 325 feet down each line and 400 feet to dead center, and you get one of the most outrageous offensive displays in MLB history. Seriously, just look at how the ball was carrying:

Manny Machado homered twice for the Padres, who went back-to-back not once but twice — once in the fourth when Xander Bogaerts followed Machado, then again in the fifth when Machado followed Fernando Tatis Jr. The Giants were no slouches either, as San Francisco went yard five times themselves, including back-to-back shots from Brandon Crawford and LaMonte Wade Jr. In all, only two of the 18 combined starters in the game failed to record a hit.

And these weren’t just your run-of-the-mill dingers — these were missiles, the likes of which we just don’t see in a normal offensive environment:

20 feet longer on average! And these teams aren’t done, as they’ll play the final game of this two-game set on Sunday afternoon with first pitch scheduled for 4:05 p.m. ET. Yu Darvish (1-2, 3.00 ERA) will go for the Padres against San Francisco’s Alex Cobb (1-1, 1.91). San Diego is currently a -145 favorite on the moneyline at DraftKings Sportsbook, while the Giants are +125 underdogs. The run total is set at — and I swear this isn’t a typo — 20.5.

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