April 4, 2011

Tater Trot Tracker

Trot Times for April 3

by Larry Granillo

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I don't remember the exact date, but I can assure you that the first 40-home run day for the league last year did not happen during Opening Weekend. If it had, it may have just put me off this whole Tater Trot Tracker thing. That's a lot of home runs to follow. There were 23 home runs hit in just three games alone on Sunday!

But enough of that. The inaugural weekend of the year is now in the books and we can safely say a few things: there will be more home runs hit in 2011 than in any other year in history; the Orioles will go undefeated; and Mark Teixeira, Nelson Cruz, and Ian Kinsler will destroy the single-season home run record with 162 home runs. It's going to be a year for the ages!

Now, on to the trots!

Home Run of the Day: Nelson Cruz, Texas Rangers - 23.22 seconds [video]
Matt Treanor helped the Royals end another game with a walkoff home run on Sunday, but the Home Run of the Day goes to Cruz, who crushed an opposite-field, upper deck home run in the seventh to help the Rangers' victory over the Red Sox. It's not all that often that you see a home run like that.

Slowest Trot: Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers #2 - 25.19 seconds [video]
Seven home runs were hit in the Tigers-Yankees game on Sunday, with both Jorge Posada and Miguel Cabrera going yard twice. Which is convenient, because it means that Cabrera was able to notch the two slowest trots of the day. Neither were the result of much showboating. Cabrera just isn't that fast of a runner. There were seven other home run trots that took more than 24 seconds to run around the league.

Quickest Trot: Jorge Posada, New York Yankees #2 - 19.36 seconds [video]
While reviewing the home run trots on Sunday night, I made a joke on Twitter that YES Network refused to show Posada's trips around the bases because they didn't want us to know that he hadn't touched the bases (I was forced to watch Fox Sports Detroit's video feed to get Posada's trot times). A few people replied back that they never showed the trots because Posada is so slow that he was still running the bases. Which I find to be pretty funny, now that I see that Posada managed the quickest trot of the night. His second blast was one of only three trots on the day (out of forty!) to come in under 20-seconds. Something must have been in the water.