The San Francisco Giants and Home Runs

As a baseball blogger, I read dozens of baseball articles each day. I'm fascinated and influenced by the myriads of brilliant pieces out there. A while ago, I ran into this post on Athletics Nation, examining the A's home runs using Hit Tracker Online. I've been meaning to look at the Giants' home runs for quite some time, but I would be remiss if I didn't first acknowledge the Athletics Nation post that influenced this. Anyway, here goes...

I love Hit Tracker Online. It shows the true distances of home runs, the speed off the bat, the date, the ballpark, the pitcher, the hitter, the teams, and a link to the Top Plays Archive, where a video of the home run can be found. To put it simply, it's awesome.

Without further ado, some notes on the Giants 2010 home runs...

• The longest home run of the year...Andres Torres off of Rodrigo Lopez on July 22, 2010, in Arizona. This one had a true distance of 450 ft. I love that Torres has the Giants' longest home run of the year. Not Pat Burrell. Not Pablo Sandoval. Not Aubrey Huff. The speedy guy, whose power nobody seems to trust. Yet, over the past two seasons, in 740 PAs, he's posted an ISO of .223...that's legitimate power. And he swings the heaviest bat on the team. Literally. I also love what Kruk says after this home run..."That's up where Barry Bonds used to hit 'em."
• The second, third, and fourth longest home runs of the year...courtesy of Pablo Sandoval. He may not have had a great season in terms of power, but when he got a hold of 'em, he hit 'em deep. And these were spread throughout the season....One was in April, one came in June, and one came in August.
• Home run with the fastest speed off the bat...Aubrey Huff off of Chris Narveson at Miller Park. 113.4 MPH off the bat.
• Home run with the highest apex...Andres Torres off of Carlos Villanueva at Miller Park. Apex of 134 feet. (Gotta love that four-game sweep at Miller Park...)
• The Giants had two inside-the-parkers...Andres Torres and Aubrey Huff. "That's right Mr. Huff. You hit home runs here, you gotta earn 'em."
• Some other great home runs from 2010, just because...Juan Uribe's HR in World Series Game One. Juan Uribe's HR in NLCS Game Six. Juan Uribe's HR off of Jonathan Broxton. Cody Ross' home runs in NLCS Game One: first and second. Pat Burrell's grand slam (his second HR of that game). Juan Uribe's grand slam (his second HR of that inning). Oh yeah, and I love this Huff home run, for whatever reason. Lastly, of course, Edgar Renteria's HR in World Series Game Five. 

Because there's so many, here are the honorable mentions....Burrell off of Broxton (couldn't find the video of this one). Ishikawa's grand slam off of Ubaldo Jimenez. Renteria's home-opening day home run off of Billy Wagner. 

• One of my favorite things in baseball is the walkoff home run. I love walkoff home runs. Something about a player being able to end the game with one swing of the bat. Something about the brief period of time in which you can watch the ball sail through the air, awaiting its descent into the stands. Something about the way in which the player who hits the home run pauses for a second to gaze at the beautiful work he's done. I love them. I'm very saddened by the fact that the Giants went the entire season without a walkoff home run....but this one from 2009 was pretty awesome.