Did I say in yesterday’s post that there were quick home run trots on Tuesday? Because Tuesday had nothing on last night…
Home Run of the Day: Angel Pagan, New York Mets (Trot Time: 14.48 seconds) [video]
I don’t know if it’s safe to say that an inside-the-park home run will necessarily be the Home Run of the Day every time we see one, but when the batter runs it out as Pagan did yesterday, it has to be. Before yesterday, there had been three inside-the-park home runs hit: Stephen Drew, who ran his out in 15.84 seconds; Aubrey Huff, who ran his out in 16.45 seconds; and David DeJesus, who ran his out in 15.71 seconds (despite the ball actually leaving the yard). Those are some speedy trots. Pagan’s inside-the-parker was a full second faster than any of those (and two full seconds faster than Huff).
What’s more, he actually needed to run that fast in order to score the run. Watch the replay and you’ll see he barely beat the tag. If it had taken him a full second longer to circle the bases, he would’ve been out by a mile. That’s some head’s up baserunning, and easily the best trot of the year.
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Slowest Trot: Carlos Lee, Houston Astros – 25.15 seconds [video]
Even the slow trots were fast yesterday. Normally, a 25-second trot wouldn’t be slow enough to merit this honor, but it was Wednesday. Carlos Lee‘s blast was the winner. Other candidates were Chris Snyder (24.92 seconds), Torii Hunter (24.04 seconds), and Adam LaRoche (24.17 seconds, home run #1).
Quickest Trot: Angel Pagan, New York Mets – 14.48 seconds [video]
We already tackled Pagan’s great trot above. If it wasn’t for that, the quickest trot of the day would easily belong to Cincinnati’s Chris Heisey. It was only the second home run of this career, but it was pretty memorable: it was a pinch-hit, game-tying home run in the ninth inning that he ran out in 17.11 seconds. Great start to his career. We also saw an 18.39 second trot from Josh Hamilton yesterday.
Oh, and somewhere in here I should probably mention that David Ortiz hit a home run yesterday but, because it was ruled a triple on the field and the umpires had to go into the booth to figure it out, I can’t give him a trot time. And it even looked like he was running hard on this one before he realized the ball was still live. He might have actually been able to pull out a 24-second trot (though probably not).
