April 25, 2011

Tater Trot Tracker

Trot Times for April 24

by Larry Granillo

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Sunday baseball is the best. Day games all over the country, a generally good matchup for the night game, hawks flying around Miller Park...

Now let's get to the trots... before we get attacked from above.

Home Run of the Day: Mike Stanton, Florida Marlins - 21.15 seconds [video]
Normally, I'd feature Shane Victorino's inside-the-park home run up here as Home Run of the Day, but, since I'll talk about that below, I wanted to mention this blast from Mike Stanton. The home run went so far that it bounced near the very last row of the lower level of seats out there in Sun Life Stadium, where it bounced into the hallway. Best of all, the ball was retrieved by a little old lady who climbed out of her seat to chase the ball down. I have no idea if the lady is Hispanic or not, but I'm going to refer to this home run forever and always as the "Abuela Home Run". It was fun to watch from start to finish.

Slowest Trot: Mark Reynolds, Baltimore Orioles - 24.58 seconds [video]
This blast from Reynolds was not very memorable, and could easily have fallen by the wayside for a slower trot on most days. It did break Reynolds out of an 0-for-22 slump, for which I'm sure Baltimore fans are very grateful for. Mike Napoli was the only trot to be even close to Reynolds' time, and he came in nearly a full second quicker at 23.61 seconds.

Quickest Trot: Shane Victorino, Philadelphia Phillies - 14.33 seconds [video]
On any other day, there would be a battle for this spot between Brandon Boggs (17.49 seconds), Jason Heyward (18.59 seconds), and Curtis Granderson (18.61 seconds), but no such luck for those speedsters today. That's because Shane Victorino took advantage of a very lucky bounce (at Wil Venable's expense) to record one of the fastest single trots I've yet seen. Venable dove to his right to make the play on the ball, and he appeared to catch it. The ball leapt out of his glove and his body hit the ground, though, and bounced away from everyone involved. By the time Cameron Maybin was able to bring the ball in, Victorino was already rounding third and heading for home.

I marveled last week at the incredibly fast trot from Peter Bourjos during his four-base single. Victorino wasn't quite able to match that 14-second feat, but he came closer than anyone I've seen. Before Sunday, the fastest inside-the-park home run I had recorded was 14.48 seconds from Angel Pagan last summer. Shane Victorino has now set a new bar.