Written by David Schoenfield at ESPN.com
You want to talk Trevor Story? OK, let’s talk Trevor Story. The Colorado Rockiesrookie shortstop slammed his seventh home in six games, a solo shot in the bottom of the eighth that gave the Rockies a 5-3 lead on their way to a 6-3 win against the San Diego Padres. There are all kinds of fun trivia related to his exploits and those of his teammates.
A few good ones:
— Story became the first player to hit seven home runs in his team’s first six games. Larry Walker (1997), Mike Schmidt (1976) and Willie Mays (1964) had each hit six. Pretty good company.
— Story has more home runs than 16 teams.
— Also, the Rockies are the second team to hit 17 home runs in their first six games, joining the 2006 Detroit Tigers.
How’s he doing his damage? Let’s review’s Story’s seven home runs, four of which have traveled 425-plus feet:
1. Off Zack Greinke: 0-1 fastball, line drive to right field.
2. Off Zack Grienke: 2-0 slider, fly ball to left-center.
3. Off Shelby Miller: 1-0 changeup, fly ball to left-center.
4. Off Patrick Corbin: 1-0 fastball, line drive to left-center.
5. Off Chaz Roe: 0-0 curveball, fly ball to left field.
6. Off Ryan Buchter: 3-2 fastball, fly ball to left field.
7. Off Brandon Maurer: 1-1 slider, fly ball to left-center.
You can see the impressive thing about these home runs: He has hit them against four different pitches. Sunday’s home run came against a hanging slider from Maurer that stayed up and over the plate. That’s what good sluggers are supposed to do — make you pay for a mistake.
It’s obviously too early to draw any kind of conclusion on Story. He has struck out eight times in 28 plate appearances and that was the knock against him coming up through the minors. Will his swing-and-miss tendencies get exploited at the major league level? While he had 70 extra-base hits in the minors last year, including 20 home runs, he also fanned 141 times in 130 games. He has just one walk so far but he hasn’t been overly aggressive and swinging at bad pitches. His chase rate on pitches outside the strike zone is 28.6 percent, just a tick above the major league average of 27.3 percent, and better discipline than teammates Nolan Arenado and Carlos Gonzalez.
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