Granillo: Tater Trot Tracker: Hanley Ramirez Breaks the 30-second Barrier

Woo-eee! More fun than PHD Comics explaining The Higgs Boson!

Ramirez watched the flight of the ball from home plate with his typical panache as it took roughly 6.24 seconds to finally clear the fence. On May 26, when Bryce Harper set the pace with the quickest trot of the year, he touched second base in 8.21 seconds. On Sunday, Ramirez touched first base at nine seconds, well on his way to a typically slow 26-27 second trot. Sunday’s trot was anything but typical, however. Whereas most trotters will maintain some kind of reasonable speed once they get going, Ramirez did no such thing. At 17 seconds, he was a few steps past second base (more than 30 trots in 2012 have been completed in the 17-second range). At 22 seconds—the length of an average major league tater trot—Ramirez finally rounded third, setting the pace for a 28-29 second trot.

But he didn’t stop there. No, he waited until he was just about home before he did that, dropping from the slow “Hanley jog” we all know so well into a straight-up walk. When he finally took his third and final step onto home plate, 30.3 seconds had elapsed on his tater trot. It’s the first non-injury related half-minute trot since David Ortiz managed a 30.59 second trot on May 24, 2010, and only the second one ever recorded by the Tater Trot Tracker. Like Ortiz, Ramirez has never been known as a speedy trotter, but it took something special for each to break the barrier. For Papi, it was avoiding an umpire on a ball down the line. For Hanley, it was pent-up energy from a month-long build-up of no home runs.

In either case, breaking the 30-second barrier was much more thrilling than it had any right to be. I can’t wait for the next one.