PHOENIX – It’s fitting Chase Field looks like an airplane hangar, because baseballs tend to take off, whether the roof is open or closed.
The downtown ballpark sits at an elevation of about 1,100 feet. A ball that goes 400 feet at New York’s Yankee Stadium, near sea level, will go about 408 feet at an elevation roughly 1,000 feet higher, according to “The Physics of Baseball,” a book by Yale physics professor Robert K. Adair.
What’s more, the infield is hard and the outfield grass is thin, which can lead to scorefests similar to those at Coors Field. The huge green batter’s eye in center field gives hitters a terrific background.
“Hitters see the ball very well there. I know our hitters do,” said Rockies left-hander Jeff Francis, who starts tonight’s Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. “But I think it plays fair. As a pitcher, whether you’re pitching at Coors Field or in Detroit, you have to approach the game the same way.”
In nine meetings between the Rockies and Diamondbacks at Chase this season, the teams combined for an average of 9.1 runs a game. But on May 23, Francis threw seven strong innings in Colorado’s 2-0 win.
“It’s a very quick outfield and the ball skips a little bit, a lot like a spring training field,” Rockies center fielder Cory Sullivan said. “But we’ve played nine games there this season already, so we’ve got a lot of experience with it. It should aid our team offensively. Defensively, you should give yourself maybe a step more. Maybe play the ball a little deeper.”
While Fenway Park boasts the Green Monster in left field, Chase Field’s center-field wall also is imposing. It stretches from the field to the roof, with a yellow home run line 25 feet off the ground.
“You have to know how to play that big wall, because it can be intimidating,” Sullivan said. “You have to treat it the same as any park. I think a lot of guys, when they go back on balls, they kind of shy away and think they have to field the ball off the bounce. I just go after the ball aggressively, like I do at Coors Field.”
Patrick Saunders: 303-954-1428 or psaunders@denverpost.com
