The rest of Tuesday's trots will be coming. In the meantime, it's already pretty easy to know who had the Home Run of the Day…
Let's get to the trots!
Home Run of the Day: Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals – 23.66 seconds [video]
Boy, this was a fun one. Early in the Braves/Nationals tilt at Nationals Park, Bryce Harper crushed a ball off Atlanta starter Julio Teheran to centerfield, just to the left of the batter's eye. As a Washington fan was getting himself thrown out for jumping onto the grass there, Harper was busy watching the ball sail out of there before embarking on his trot. Apparently, there was also a bat toss (you can see it in the final few seconds of this highlight).
Now, let's get this straight. Harper ran out his trot much slower than he usually does. In fact, the trot was the slowest of Harper's career by more than 1.5 seconds! And was nearly five seconds slower than his career average trot! That's bad!
Of course, it was still also only 23.66 seconds long. There have been more than 200 trots so far this season of that same rough duration and none of them caused a plunking on the very next pitch the batter saw!
One other thing to note about the Harper trot: the night before, the Braves beat the Nationals thanks to a late-inning blast from Justin Upton. That shot sailed down the left field line, with Upton taking his time around the bases (see the trot here). Overall, the trot from Upton took 27.36 seconds — nearly four seconds slower than Harper! There's a decent chance that Harper took his sweet time (relatively speaking) in response to Upton's slow trot.
And, no, you can't blame Upton's trot on the ball being nearly foul. Upton took 7.74 seconds to reach first; Harper took 7.48 seconds. The difference in their trots is the time they took trotting from first to home.
Slowest Trot: Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals – 23.66 seconds [video]
This is actually really amazing. 28 home runs on the day and still Harper's 23.66 second trot comes in as the slowest? Most any other day of the season and he'd be somewhere in the middle of the pack.
Quickest Trot: Carlos Gomez, Milwaukee Brewers – 17.93 seconds [video]
Always nice to see Gomez running hard on his trots like this, even if he does slow up too much at the start and end of it to give us the super-quick time we all know is in him.
All of Today's Trots Bryce Harper........23.66 Don Kelly...........21.31 Derek Norris........23.61 Darin Ruf...........21.15 Carlos Beltran......23.6 Justin Morneau......21.12 Brian Dozier........23.48 Donnie Murphy.......20.84 Cody Ross...........23.2 Jake Elmore.........20.78 Jacoby Ellsbury #1..22.97 Brett Wallace.......20.76 Matt Adams..........22.76 Mike Trout..........19.73 Jacoby Ellsbury #2..22.53 Charlie Blackmon....19.6 Anthony Rizzo.......22.43 Robbie Grossman.....19.37 Jonny Gomes.........22.11 Kole Calhoun........19.24 Adam Jones..........22.04 Jose Reyes..........19.11 Evan Longoria.......21.81 Josh Harrison.......19.1* Chris Colabello.....21.65 Jay Bruce...........18.67 Carlos Ruiz.........21.51 Carlos Gomez........17.93
Click here for the ongoing 2013 Tater Trot Tracker Leaderboard. You can also follow @TaterTrotTrkr on Twitter for more up-to-the-minute trot times.
