June 13, 2011

Tater Trot Tracker

Trot Times for June 12

by Larry Granillo

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It's been five days, but I'm back with your daily Tater Trot Tracker update now. As I said on Wednesday, I was in California all weekend with some family stuff to take care of. Sorry for the outage. This post covers only Sunday's trots. As the week goes on, I'll catch up on the trots that I've missed. I don't expect to cover those trots here, but I want to make sure I catalog them so I don't miss anything good (did David Ortiz do another bat flip home run? were there any bad-blood tater trots in the Cardinals-Brewers games?). There's a good chance you'll see a "best of" list from the days I missed.

Let's get to the trots!

Home Run of the Day: Prince Fielder, Milwaukee Brewers - 24.24 seconds [video]
Evan Longoria hit an inside-the-park home run, which would usually be enough for the Home Run of the Day. But I got back into Milwaukee just in time to catch this game, with the Brewers looking for a sweep and sole possession of first place against the Cardinals, and that home run is hard to look past. Not only was it Fielder's eighth home run in ten game (six of which have given the Brewers the lead, with the other two tying games), but it completed a Brewers sixth-inning comeback from down 3-0 to up 4-3. The ball was hit so hard off the bat that I couldn't follow the ball with my eyes and the cameraman couldn't even find it in the crowd. It was a big home run. The Brewers went on to win the game by that same score and are now half a game ahead of St. Louis.

Slowest Trot: David Ortiz, Boston Red Sox - 29.66 seconds [video]
Exactly how close to 30 seconds can Big Papi get without going over? On Tuesday, the bat-flip trot was 29.56 seconds. On Sunday, he squeaked it up to 29.66 seconds. Did he hit a home run in the days in-between? I'll need to watch those trots closely. When Ortiz became the only player in all of baseball in 2010 to go over 30-seconds (without an injury), he did it at the end of a hot streak that saw a lot of slow trots. We may be seeing something similar right now.

Quickest Trot: Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays - 15.74 seconds [video]
Your run of the mill inside-the-parker. Baltimore centerfielder Adam Jones read the ball wrong as he charged in on it and was forced to jump opposite his momentum when he realized it. He missed the ball, it rolled to the wall, and Longoria came around to score. The 15.74 seconds is on the slow end for inside-the-parkers, but he didn't really have to worry about beating the throw. This was the only sub-twenty second trot of the day.

All of Today's Trots

David Ortiz........29.66     Miguel Olivo #2....22.53
Todd Helton........27.63     Adrian Gonzalez....22.34
Adam Dunn..........24.72     Luke Scott.........22.32
Miguel Olivo #1....24.71     Jose Bautista......22.2
Prince Fielder.....24.24     Brian McCann.......22.06
Dan Uggla..........24.03     Ryan Roberts.......21.25
Seth Smith.........23.6      Michael Cuddyer....21.2
James Loney........23.5      Matt Kemp..........21.11
Aramis Ramirez.....23.44     Kevin Youkilis.....21
Justin Smoak.......23.33     Scott Sizemore.....20.97
Vladimir Guerrero..23.24     Dustin Pedroia.....20.41
Jose Reyes.........23.17     Carlos Gonzalez....20.41
Troy Tuolowitzki...22.88     Adam Jones.........20.4
Scott Hairston.....22.62     Johnny Damon.......20
Rod Barajas........22.6      Evan Longoria......15.74