HRs flying out of Yanks’ park at record pace

NEW YORK (AP) — Home runs are flying out of Yankee Stadium at a record pace for a new ballpark.

Twenty were hit in the first four games alone as New York and Cleveland split the opening series that ended Sunday. That’s easily the high for the first four games at a major league park, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, topping the 16 when Oakland started the 1996 season at Cashman Field in Las Vegas.

“There are a couple ballparks out there that the ball just travels well. This might be one of them,” New York’s Mark Teixeira, who hit two of those home runs, said after Monday night’s game against Oakland was rained out.

Fourteen of the home runs have been hit to right field, raising concern that there might be a wind tunnel in the $1.5 billion ballpark, which has wide, open concourses, as opposed to the narrow hallways in the original Yankee Stadium on the south side of 161st Street, which remains standing.

According to Elias, there were eight four-game spans of 20 or more homers at the original Yankee Stadium, some of them overlapping: one in 2000, two in 2003, one in 2004 and four in 2007. The high of 26 was from July 31-Aug. 2, 2007.

“It’s not something that I want to see a lot, unless it’s all ours. But it was an interesting four days,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.

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