James Wood Sets New Personal Hard Hit Record in Nationals Loss to Royals

The Washington Nationals All-Star now has two of the hardest hit baseballs in franchise history in the last 10 years.

Aug 10, 2025; San Francisco, California, USA; Washington Nationals left fielder James Wood (29) hits an RBI double against the San Francisco Giants during the seventh inning at Oracle Park. | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

The introduction of Statcast to Major League Baseball in 2015 gave teams like the Washington Nationals a whole new group of statistics to track including hard-hit baseball, which are measured by the speed of the baseball.

Nationals outfielder James Wood is known for hitting the ball hard. It’s helped him earn an All-Star game appearance and a place in this year’s All-Star Game home run derby. It also helped him set a new personal best on Tuesday night against the Kansas City Royals.

Wood hit a double in the seventh inning of Tuesday's 8-5 loss to the Royals and that double was recorded at 118 mph, which made it the hardest hit baseball in his career and the second-hardest hit ball in Nationals history in the StatCast era. Nationals Communications on X (formerly Twitter) released the data but did not indicate which player had the hardest hit baseball in team history. But Wood now has two of the three hardest hit baseballs in team history.

James Wood’s Slump Buster

James Wood’s 7th inning double was hit at 118.0 mph, the hardest hit ball of his career and the second hardest hit ball in Nationals history during the StatCast era (2015-pres.).

Wood now owns two of the top three StatCast era exit velocities in Nationals history. pic.twitter.com/l5pG9BDjKv

— Nationals Communications (@NationalsComms) August 13, 2025

Wood went 2-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored, marking his fourth straight game with at least two hits as he continues to work his way out of a slump that started after the All-Star break. In his first 18 games post-break, Wood slashed .130/.221/.174 with no home runs and two RBI.

It was the deepest slump of his young MLB career, which started last July when he was called up from Triple-A Rochester to make his debut. He started to turn things around at the start of the road trip, which began in California against the San Francisco Giants.

On Saturday, he ended a month-long home run drought in a 4-2 victory. He hadn’t slammed a home run since July 9, which was before the All-Star break. In his last four games he is 8-for-19 with seven RBI and five runs scored. His slash in the last seven games is now .333/.355/.600.

Earlier this season he became the third player in MLB history to have at least 33 home runs, 101 walks, 110 singles and 34 doubles in their first 180 career games. The other two were Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams and the player whose trade led Wood to Washington — Juan Soto.

He was named to the All-Star Game for the first time and participated in the Home Run Derby in July, the result of an impressive first half of the season. He has now slashed .264/.354/.427 with 25 home runs and 78 RBI.           

Wood was the San Diego Padres’ second-round pick in the 2021 MLB draft out of IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. He was one of several players the Nationals acquired in 2022 in a massive trade for Soto and Josh Bell, the latter of which returned to Washington this season.