June 13, 2012

Tater Trot Tracker

Trot Times for June 12

by Larry Granillo

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The All-Star Game is less than a month away. Amazing. Seems like it was only yesterday that the season started. Then I look at the 1800+ tater trots that have been tracked and I realize just how long it's really been.

Let's get to those trots!

Home Run of the Day: Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees - 25.44 seconds [video]
Bryce Harper hit yet another blast and Madison Bumgarner his his first career home run, but the day belongs to Alex Rodriguez. Tuesday's home run was a grand slam to tie it up in the top of the 8th inning. It was the 23rd grand slam of A-Rod's career, tying him atop the career leaderboard with none other than Lou Gehrig. That truly is an amazing accomplishment. The fact that the Yankees used his slam to go on and win the game is just icing on the cake.

I realized this afternoon that in the, maybe, four games that I've seen A-Rod play in person, I was lucky enough to see one of his grand slams. It was the fifth of his career and was hit off of Baltimore's Arthur Rhodes two weeks after Safeco Field opened in 1999. I wasn't happy about it then, but I'm glad to have seen it now.

Slowest Trot: Todd Helton, Colorado Rockies - 25.93 seconds [video]
A quartet of slow sluggers went yard on Tuesday. Besides Helton, Juan Rivera, A-Rod, and Adam Dunn all had tater trots climb above 25-seconds - and I'm not surprised by a single one of them. Helton and Rivera have always been two of the slowest trotters in baseball and both Rodriguez and Dunn can slip into the big numbers on any given night.

Quickest Trot: Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals - 18.49 seconds [video]
And then there's the other end. Harper technically had the fastest trot of the night at a brisk 18.49 seconds. But with the way he's run out his home runs so far this year, this time feels slow. I wonder if it's an inevitability that Harper will slow down into the 19-21 second range like, say, Josh Hamilton has. Not that there's anything wrong with that; it'd just be disappointing to see.

All of Today's Trots

Todd Helton........25.93   David Murphy.......22.12
Juan Rivera........25.72*  Jose Bautista......22
Alex Rodriguez.....25.44   Miguel Montero.....22
Adam Dunn..........25.27   Casey McGehee......21.92
Chris Davis........24.43   Alex Gordon........21.44
Mark Reynolds......24.13   Michael Saunders...21.15
AJ Pierzynski......23.81   Nick Swisher.......20.41
Brandon Belt.......23.24   Danny Espinosa.....20.05
Neil Walker........23.12   Brandon Moss #2....19.99
Josh Willingham....22.66   Cliff Pennington...19.91
Brandon Inge.......22.48   Brandon Moss #1....19.74
Ike Davis..........22.44   Jhonatan Solano....19.59
Adam Jones.........22.38   Logan Morrison.....19.49
Trevor Plouffe.....22.32   Denard Span........19.48
Joey Votto.........22.31   Tyler Colvin.......19.45
Madison Bumgarner..22.18   Bryce Harper.......18.49

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.