The New York Yankees belted 15 home runs and scored 36 runs in a three-game sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers in the 2025 season’s opening week—a power display that tied an MLB record for the most home runs in the first three games of a season. The home run rally came thanks in part to the team’s newest tool: torpedo bats.
Over the course of the series, the Yankees' torpedo bats, created by a one-time MIT physicist and former employee on the team, generated quite a bit of attention. But Brewers manager Pat Murphy isn't buying the notion that the unusual bats contributed to the home run derby against his club.
"My old a-- will tell you this for sure—It ain’t the wand, it’s the magician," Murphy told The Daily News Sunday. "So if the bats help, I’m sure every guy in the league will be using them within a week. But I’m telling you, it’s the hitter, not the bat."
Murphy's comments are certainly interesting, given that the voice most critical of the torpedo bat was one of his pitchers, Trevor Megill, who called the innovative lumber "terrible.”
Five Yankees hitters used the torpedo bats in the season-opening series against the Brewers: catcher Austin Wells, first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr., shortstop Anthony Volpe and outfielder Cody Bellinger. And opinions as to the bat's impact on hitting vary among each Yankees player.
Bellinger told reporters the bat, which features a slightly bigger barrel where hitters tend to make contact, felt "lighter" in his hands and provided more "margin for error." Chisholm, while not fully dismissing the bat's potential impact, likened the feeling it gives to something of a placebo effect, or a "feeling" that the bat gives a hitter more to work with.
Whether the bat really does lend itself to better hitting or it's just the illusion that it does, teams are buying in. The Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies have already made moves to acquire such bats, while the Chicago Cubs, Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays already employ a player—or players—who utilize the lumber.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Brewers Manager Pat Murphy Dismissed Impact of Torpedo Bats on Yankees' Offense .
