April 11, 2012

Tater Trot Tracker

Trot Times for April 10

by Larry Granillo

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You know how baseball season is really underway? It's when a game in Cleveland is postponed due to snow and when a game in Detroit is played with flurries floating around the park. Nothing goes better with baseball than a little snow.

Oh wait, that's not true at all. Snow belongs in a baseball stadium as much as Adam Dunn belongs in a Tom Emanski "Defensive Drills" video. It's something we have to put up with from time to time, though. Luckily, we had eleven other games to watch throughout the day yesterday (even if they did manage to give us only 15 home runs total).

Now let's get to those trots!

Home Run of the Day: Chipper Jones, Atlanta Braves - 24.45 seconds [video]
Didn't Chipper Jones announce during spring training that he would be retiring after the season? And didn't he then immediately get hurt, necessitating a trip to the disabled list to start the season? And isn't Chipper something like 72 years old with no knees to speak of whatsoever? So how was it that he crushed a home run in only his second at-bat of the season on Tuesday? However he managed it, it was a very welcome sight at the start the Hall of Famer's final season.

The home run was the 455th of Jones' career. To balance things out, Atlanta's Tyler Pastornicky would later hit the first home run of his career, trotting home in 20.28 seconds.

Slowest Trot: Geovany Soto, Chicago Cubs - 25.55 seconds [video]
The wind was being funny in Wrigley Field last night, forcing back moonshot-after-moonshot but then letting through hard hit but low line drives all over the place. Soto managed his blast to leadoff the bottom half of the ninth inning, but it wasn't enough to give the Cubs the victory. Soto had no problem strolling around the bases, however, cold wind and all. The next slowest trot belonged to Chipper Jones, who rounded the bases a full second quicker.

Quickest Trot: Austin Jackson, Detroit Tigers - 18.32 seconds [video]
Jackson doesn't hit too many home runs, but his trots are always a joy to watch. The speedy centerfielder does not rest on those basepaths, always sprinting home. Tuesday was no exception, as Jackson beat out the next two quickest trots by nearly 1.5 seconds.

All of Today's Trots

Geovany Soto.......25.55   JJ Hardy...........20.46
Chipper Jones......24.45   Ian Desmond........20.29
Edwin Encarnacion..23.23   Tyler Pastornicky..20.28
Alex Gonzalez......22.8    Mitch Maier........20.09
Carlos Beltran.....22.73   Derek Jeter........19.78
Chris Young........22.53   Jonathan Lucroy....19.7
Andre Ethier.......22.08*  Austin Jackson.....18.32
David Freese.......22.03

Click here for the ongoing 2012 Tater Trot Tracker Leaderboard. You can also follow @TaterTrotTrkr on Twitter for more up-to-the-minute trot times.