It’s Official! David Ortiz is Slow

David Ortiz certainly has a flare for the dramatics, doesn’t he?

With a towering three-run blast in the eighth inning of Wednesday night’s game against the Texas Rangers, the Boston Red Sox slugger not only put his team ahead 4-2…but he also set a record of sorts.  And that record?  Being the slowest to round the bases in close to five seasons.

Don’t think that’s a thing? You’d be wrong.

Since 2010, Tater Trot Tracker has been, you guessed it, tracking tater, er, home run trots every time a player goes yard.  And on Wednesday night, Big Papi’s waltz around the bases timed out at 32.91 seconds.  By comparison, this was nearly 1.5 seconds slower than the previous record trot of 31.56 set by Bobby Abreu in September 2012.

According to Larry Granillo, the brains behind Tater Trot Tracker, Ortiz is no stranger to slow home run trots…dude had seven of the ten slowest strolls last season.  That said, Wednesday night’s home run was the first time Ortiz topped the half-minute mark since 2010 and he did give this one a nice, long look to see  if it would be fair.

“With David Ortiz and Fenway Park, anything down the line is something to get excited about, but I’ve seen plenty of homers like that where Papi was able to skate in just under 30 seconds even after waiting for it to land fair,” Granillo said.  “So when I noticed him rounding second around the 16-second mark, I started to get excited. Those final 90 feet were a blast!”