April 25, 2012

Tater Trot Tracker

Trot Times for April 24

by Larry Granillo

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From ten home runs on Monday to 32 homers on Tuesday, baseball's random nature shows itself again. Thankfully, we had plenty of interesting trots last night, with notoriously slow trotters and famously quick trotters all getting their turn. And, even though it's already the last week of April, we're still seeing the first home runs of such stars as Carlos Gonzalez (who hit two out Tuesday night to make up for things).

Let's get to those trots!

Home Run of the Day: Matt Wieters, Baltimore Orioles - 23.04 seconds [video]
Chipper Jones hit a home run on his 40th birthday last night in Los Angeles. It was the fifth time he's hit a home run on his birthday. Even with that serendipitous moment, Wieters' late home run Tuesday takes the cake, though not for normal reasons. The ball was hit hard to leftfield, but it looked like Toronto outfielder Eric Thames had a bead on it. A foot or two from the wall, Thames jumped up to make the catch. As he jumped and hit the wall behind him, the ball hit Thames' mitt but bounced away. High away. Over the fence away. Home run for Wieters, despite not hitting the ball far enough to make it over the wall. It's a mistake that's fun to see, no matter when or how it happens. Thankfully, Thames had already hit himself a home run earlier in the game to try and even things out some.

Slowest Trot: David Ortiz, Boston Red Sox - 28.09 seconds [video]
It's hard to say for sure, but I'm pretty sure Big Papi is still watching this home run fly. The trot itself was vintage Ortiz, with a long pause to watch the ball at the plate, a simple trot through second base and then an exaggeratedly slow trot for the final 90 feet. It may be only Ortiz's third home run of the year, but I'm happy to see him at mid-season form on his trots.

Juan Rivera, Miguel Cabrera, and Chipper Jones all had 25+ second trots, but were still three seconds behind Papi.

Quickest Trot: Carlos Gomez, Milwaukee Brewers - 16.46 seconds [video]
This one was so much fun that I almost put it was the trot of the day. Carlos Gomez is a very, very fast man. His home run Tuesday night cleared the fence, but Gomez didn't know that at first. According to Bob Uecker, Gomez thought the ball had ricocheted off the wall, so he kept running as hard as he could, looking for either a triple or inside-the-park home run. It wasn't until Gomez was passing the shortstop position that he realized it was a clean home run. Of course, considering how fast Gomez is, it was barely nine seconds into his trot when he realized that (a slower trot like one from Juan Rivera or David Ortiz would barely be rounding first at nine seconds). He slowed down considerably as he rounded third, but the trot was still good enough for a 16.46 second trot, the fastest non-inside-the-park home run trot of the year by over a second.

All of Today's Trots

David Ortiz........28.09    Hunter Pence.......22.06
Juan Rivera........25.29    Cody Ransom........21.93
Miguel Cabrera.....25.29    Jason Kubel........21.72
Chipper Jones......25.05    Ian Kinsler........21.51
Luke Scott.........24.83    Desmond Jennings...21.4
Matt Holliday......24.77    Alex Avila.........21.3
Rickie Weeks.......24.2*    Jose Altuve........21.28
Carlos Pena........23.58    Travis Ishikawa....21.28
Buster Posey.......23.24    Mike Aviles........21.15
Brandon Phillips...23.18    Corey Hart.........21.09
Laynce Nix.........23.12    Clint Barmes.......20.99
Matt Wieters.......23.04    Alex Liddi.........20.4
Bryan LaHair.......22.96    BJ Upton...........19.96
Shane Victorino....22.25    Ryan Ludwick.......19.54
Carlos Gonzalez #1.22.14    Eric Thames........18.73
Carlos Gonzalez #2.22.1     Carlos Gomez.......16.46

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.