September 12, 2011

Tater Trot Tracker

Trot Times for September 11

by Larry Granillo

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Sunday afternoon was about much more than baseball and home runs. Aside from a snafu here and there, the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks was handled gracefully by Major League Baseball. The games went on, fans cheered, home runs were hit - as it should be.

Let's check out those trots!

Home Run of the Day: B.J. Upton, Tampa Bay Rays - 20.58 seconds [video]
B.J.'s swing is not always as pretty as his brother's, but when it is... Upton went 4-for-4 on Sunday, including this fifth-inning grand slam. The ball absolutely exploded off his bat before finding the far depths of the leftfield bleachers at Tropicana Field. My only disappointment with this homer was that it didn't somehow find that second deck (though I'm sure that's like 495 feet away). That's how pretty it was.

Slowest Trot: Ryan Howard, Philadelphia Phillies - 25.03 seconds [video]
Another home run from Howard at Miller Park. This one seemed to be Howard poking at the ball and somehow hurtling it 415 feet into the rightfield power alley. The trot was nearly two seconds slower than the next slowest trot of the day - Adrian Beltre's 23.17 second trot on his first home run of the day.

Washington's Ryan Zimmerman hit a home run on Sunday as well, but his trot was not trackable. The single feed broadcasting the game between the Nationals and Astros cut away well before Zimmerman reached home plate and didn't return until he was far past the plate.

Quickest Trot: Howie Kendrick, Los Angeles Angels - 18.82 seconds [video]
There were quite a few sub-20 second trots on Sunday - eight (of 23) to be exact - but only Kendrick's fell into the 18-second range. Rick Ankiel was a hair behind Kendrick, touching home in 19.02 seconds.

All of Today's Trots

Ryan Howard........25.03   B.J. Upton.........20.58
Adrian Beltre #1...23.17   Marco Scutaro......20.15
Chipper Jones......23.16   Peter Bourjos......19.92
Adrian Beltre #2...22.66   Eric Sogard........19.9
Ty Wigginton.......22.53   Curtis Granderson..19.58
Joey Votto.........22.43   Adam Loewen........19.54
Luis Valbuena......22.31   Ian Desmond........19.43
Henry Blanco.......22.07   Jason Pridie.......19.11
Nick Hundley.......21.67   Rick Ankiel........19.02
David Cooper.......21.58   Howie Kendrick.....18.82
Shane Victorino....20.83   Ryan Zimmerman.....N/A
Robinson Cano......20.73