Using a strikingly different model in which wood is moved lower down the barrel after the label and shapes the end a little like a bowling pin, the torpedo bat has become baseball’s latest

Players are intrigued. Reds star Elly De La Cruz tried it Monday and crushed the ball. One bat-maker contends Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton’s seven-HR barrage in last year’s playoffs was with a torpedo. The early version of the backstory is amazing: An MIT physicist-turned-baseball coach, Aaron Leanhardt, made an observation:

MLB Central discusses whether they are in favor or not of torpedo bats, Jose Altuve playing left field, the NL West being the best division and more

But the development of the uniquely shaped piece of lumber — it looks more like a bowling pin than a traditional bat, with a thicker middle and tapered end — wasn't the result of a life spent around the game.

That's a clutch two-bagger by Muncy, and that's a tie game – one that would set the Dodgers up to win the game on Shohei Ohtani 's walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth.

This story was excerpted from Todd Zolecki’s Phillies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

The baseball world has been taken over by discussion of the torpedo bats trend, but a Chicago Cubs pitcher is getting in on the new pitch that is more quietly taking over. Cubs veteran Jameson Taillon is one of the latest players in baseball to debut a new 'kick-change.

Baseball equipment manufacturers and sellers in North Jersey say torpedo bats are nothing new. But demand is surging since the Yankees' recent barrage