May 27, 2012

Tater Trot Tracker

Trot Times for May 26

by Larry Granillo

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Saturday was a busy day. There were three walkoff home runs, a pair of super-quick trots, a first career home run and more. Chances are, no matter what game you were watching, you saw something pretty great.

Let's get to the trots!

Home Run of the Day: Josh Hamilton, Texas Rangers - 23.12* seconds [video]
AJ Ellis and Jarrod Saltalamacchia also hit walkoff blasts for their teams on Saturday. Any would have been worthy of Home Run of the Day. Hamilton's blast was his 20th of the year. The next highest total in either league is 15, shared by Adam Dunn and Edwin Encarnacion.

Watching the video, that may have been the largest number of fans I've seen run out onto the grass to catch a home run. I kind of wish I could see what happened out there because I doubt it was very pretty.

Slowest Trot: Billy Butler, Kansas City Royals - 25.56 seconds [video]
Billy Butler hit a home run and was slow running around the bases. Ho hum. What else is new? Not that I'm complaining. I love watching Butler on the basepaths.

Alfonso Soriano hit a home run in the Cubs game, but the Fox cameras didn't follow him around the bases. Since there was no other station broadcasting it, Soriano's trot has not time.

Quickest Trot: Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals - 16.35 seconds [video]
Saturday was a fantastic day for quick trots. Robinson Cano circled the bases in 18.13 seconds and was the *fourth* fastest trotter of the day. Number three was Vinny Rottino, a lifelong minor leaguer who, in his fifth season in the big leagues but only 32nd career game, hit his first major league home run. His 18.08 second trot would have been the quickest trot of the day most any other day.

The second quickest trot came from Cincinnati's Chris Heisey, who has always been one of the quickest trotters in baseball, behind only Adam Rosales. Saturday's trot was his first home run of the season, and he didn't forget how to run hard. Heisey's time was 17.61 seconds, one of the fastest trots of the season.

But they all looked slow compared to Bryce Harper. Harper's first career home run was the second quickest trot of the season. His second career homer made the top ten initially, but only just barely thanks to an imperfect camera angle. He was timed at 18.02 seconds on that trot, but, as I noted in the post that day, that time was based on his first step after home plate. Thankfully, Twitter user @bilandersondc filmed the entire trot from his seat in the stands. After watching his video, I upgraded Harper's second trot to 17.79 seconds. I was very grateful for that view.

Saturday's trot was quicker than both. In fact, it was the single quickest tater trot of the year, clocking in at 16.35 seconds. That beats Carlos Gomez's "I thought it was a triple" trot by a tenth-of-a-second. And he didn't even look like he was running his hardest. I can't wait to see Harper run out an inside the parker.

All of Today's Trots

Billy Butler..........25.56   Danny Espinosa........21.42
Alberto Callaspo......24.06   Albert Pujols.........21.33
Jason Kipnis #2.......23.85   John McDonald.........21.33
Nelson Cruz...........23.75   Mitch Moreland........21.16
Yorvit Torrealba......23.55   Devin Mesoraco........21.03
Chris Davis...........23.42   Dan Uggla.............21.01
Josh Hamilton.........23.12*  Alex Rios.............20.9
Jason Kipnis #1.......22.89   Denard Span...........20.78
Colby Rasmus..........22.72   AJ Ellis..............20.19*
Mark Teixeira #1......22.71   Josh Reddick..........20.06
Scott Hairston........22.48   Justin Smoak..........19.97
Mike Nickeas..........22.4    Dayan Viciedo.........19.68
Justin Morneau........22.26   Robinson Cano.........18.13
Jarrod Saltalamacchia.21.81*  Vinny Rottino.........18.08
Mark Teixeira #2......21.79   Chris Heisey..........17.61
JJ Hardy..............21.69   Bryce Harper..........16.35
Ryan Ludwick..........21.45   Alfonso Soriano.......n/a

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.