Gardner’s Inside-The-Park Home Run Was Foiled By Two Perfect Throws
There are a heck of a lot of exciting ways to kick of a baseball game, but not many are as exciting as the start of the Yankees/Mets matchup yesterday.
After a first pitch strike, Brett Gardner took Logan Verrett deep to right-center field, and began chugging along the bases. After the ball ricocheted off the wall, Curtis Granderson ran over from right to recover it, threw it in, hitting the cut-off man in Neil Walker, who immediately turned and fired home, nailing a greedy Gardner at the plate.
Check it out:
According to Statcast, Granderson’s initial throw traveled 180 feet to Neil Walker on a line. Then, Walker’s exchange took just 0.63 seconds, and he threw it another 160 feet to nail Gardner at the plate. Gardner, for his part, was pretty close to making it and was traveling at a ridiculous 20.1 MPH. Earlier today, we marveled at the speedy Jose Altuve making it from first to home in about 11 seconds – it took Gardner just 14.89 seconds to make it there from home – so maybe this wasn’t the worst decision ever. But still … a leadoff triple would have been plenty good.
The Yankees went on to win by one run.
