Home Run of the Day: Yadier Molina, St. Louis Cardinals (Trot Time: 21.92 seconds) [video]
For a while there, I was convinced that Molina’s home run trot, only an inning after the Reds/Cards brawl that was instigated when Brandon Phillips and Molina himself started jawing at it, was meant as a mockery of Phillips’ regular trot. After all, Phillips can add some flash to his trot (both around the bases and at home plate) and Molina is typically considered a less-than-flashy guy. The emphatic way Molina approached each base on this trot, and his big show as he touched home plate, made me think it was a not-so-subtle jab at Phillips.
But having just now watched an old home run or two from Molina, I’m not as convinced. He’s done the fists-to-chest-hands-to-sky thing before when he wasn’t busy mocking an opponent, and the rest of the trot can easily be construed as just a man super-pumped that he stuck it to the Reds. Either way, having Molina come through like that so soon after the brawl definitely makes it the home run of the day.
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Slowest Trot: Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees – 24.93 seconds [video]
Overall, it was a pretty mild night for home run trots, with the neither the fastest nor slowest trots being all that extreme (though there were a lot of 20-second or so trots that I expected to be much longer). A-Rod’s 24.93 second trot is a perfect example of that. I do recommend watching the video of the home run, though, but for a different reason. In this clip, taken from the Yankees’ broadcast, you can see a fan in a Hawaiian shirt run out of the scrum in centerfield with the ball proudly in hand, having successfully recovered A-Rod’s 601st career home run ball. However, if you watch the Rangers’ feed in MLB.tv, you can see the next second or two of video. In that feed, you can some dude in a red shirt and blue hat run after the Hawaiian shirt and literally try to pry the ball out of the guy’s hand (the attempted thief has his hat facing forward – you can see him on screen and joining the scrum in the Yankees’ broadcast right before they cut away). I have no idea what happened after that because no feed showed it, but I thought it was fun to point out.
Quickest Trot: Ryan Ludwick, San Diego Padres – 19.17 seconds [video]
Ludwick hit his first two home runs as a Padre last night (his 99th and 100th career shots, by the way). They both managed to be the fastest home run trots of the night (the first clocked in at 19.28 seconds). The only other sub-twenty second trot of the day belonged to Domonic Brown, who ran out his first career home run trot in only 19.64 seconds.
