Tater Trot Tracker: June 8

Washington Nationals first baseman Adam Dunn (L) retrieves a broken bat from a Pittsburgh Pirates batter in the third inning of their National League baseball game in Washington, June 8, 2010. Nationals' starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg, (R), in his MLB baseball debut, threw the pitch that broke the bat, resulting in a ground out.   REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (UNITED STATES - Tags: SPORT BASEBALL IMAGES OF THE DAY)

Home Run of the DayAdam Dunn, Washington Nationals (Trot Time: 23.8 seconds) [video]

My apologies to the Mets, who I’m ignoring again after they hit a big home run (this time a walkoff by rookie Ike Davis), but the story of the day yesterday was absolutely Stephen Strasburg, and I just can’t ignore that game up here. Especially when it was a home run off the bat of Adam Dunn that gave the Nats the late-lead and helped preserve Strasburg’s first career victory. The home runs by Ryan Zimmerman and Josh Willingham were important too (as well as the lone home run hit by the Pirates, off the bat of Delwyn Young), but it was Dunn’s blast that made the big difference.

I have to admit, I was really hoping for Strasburg to hit a home run in his debut because that would have just been amazing. He’d have been the first rookie pitcher to hit a home run in their major league debut since Jason Jennings did it for the Rockies (Jennings actually had quite the debut, throwing a complete-game shutout with 8 strikeouts and a home run). I guess we’ll just have to settle for 14 strikeouts in 7 innings and some of the most electrifying stuff we’ve seen in a long time.

 

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Slowest TrotVladimir Guerrero, Texas Rangers – 26.51* seconds [video]

This was just a monster blast that appears to have landed in the left field suites above the bleacher. With such a shot, you can almost understand Vlad’s slow-step-and-watch he did out of the box. His time was a little tough to gauge, due to the angle of the camera as he stepped on home plate. I’m pretty comfortable with the time I listed, but it is possible that Hanley Ramirez‘s 26.21 second trot was actually the slowest of the day [video].

 

Quickest Trot: Curtis Granderson, New York Yankees – 18.92 seconds [video]

Is that a grand slam run out in under 19 seconds? That’s impressive, considering the grand slam has the slowest average trot of any home run type. Thankfully, the MLB.tv feed gives me the tv broadcasters and not the radio broadcasters – if I had to listen to John Sterling call it a “Granderson Slam”, I might have had to hurt myself. Instead, I got the nice, low-key “See ya!” from Michael Kay. I like that so much more.

About Larry Granillo

Larry Granillo has been writing Wezen Ball since 2008 and has dealt with such touchy topics as Charlie Brown's baseball stats and Ferris Bueller's day off. In 2010, he got the bright idea to time every home run trot in baseball; he has been missing ever since.

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