HOUSTON -- Touch ‘em all, Taylor. This one counts.
One day after circling the bases thinking that he had hit a home run -- the ball had actually been caught by Blue Jays center fielder Myles Straw -- Astros outfielder Taylor Trammell launched a three-run homer in the fifth inning Tuesday night at Daikin Park to lead the Astros to a 7-2 win over the Blue Jays.
“He’s hitting the ball really well,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “His at-bats are really good. He’s walking, he’s hitting the ball with authority. He’s playing really well. He’s really maximizing this opportunity that he’s getting right now.”
Trammell’s sixth homer of the season, which came off Toronto reliever Chad Dallas and traveled a Statcast-projected 388 feet, broke open a 3-2 game. Jose Altuve’s two-out RBI single in the fifth broke the tie, and Trammell homered on the next pitch to make it 6-2. The ball had an exit velocity of 113.3 mph, making it the hardest-hit ball of his career.
“I got a good pitch to hit,” he said. “Last plate appearance, he threw me three in a row and just saw it really well and was hitting them hard for the most part. Just saw it kind of pop [out of his hand] and put a good swing on it. It’s comforting. It’s something that we worked on for a while now, just staying through the ball. The early [swing] you're going to pull, but if you stay through the middle, you’re going to have a lot of success.”
In the fourth inning of Monday’s 3-1 loss to Toronto, Trammell sent the ball a Statcast-projected 419 feet to deep right-center field at 110.4 mph off the bat, the hardest-hit ball of the game. It had a .960 expected batting average, and would have been a home run in 25 of 30 MLB parks, according to Statcast.
Straw, a former Astros outfielder, leaped at the wall and brought down a great catch. Trammell circled the bases and completed his home run trot, celebrating as he crossed home plate. He then realized Straw made the catch and he was out.
“I kind of knew I got it really well,” Trammell said. “Still confused on how it didn’t get out or anything like that. When I rounded the bases, I saw [Straw] in that corner and I didn’t know what happened. There’s a lot of padding out there. I didn’t know if a ball got lodged, if he had jumped over the fence and tried to catch it and lost his glove. I didn’t know. So the last thing I wanted to do was the ball be in play and I’m sitting on second when I could have possibly had an inside-the-parker. I didn’t want to do that, so I kept running.”
Trammell said he was furious for about two innings but eventually got to the point he could laugh about it. He tried to avoid his teammates as much as he could in the dugout, especially rookie Brice Matthews, but the players and the coaches still joked with him about it a day later.
“I thought it would be done by yesterday, but today they hit a second wind,” he said. “I was like ‘Oh, wow.’ It was funny.”
Trammell did make a point to seek out Blue Jays pitcher Shane Bieber on Tuesday and let him know that he wasn’t trying to show him up. But why didn’t Astros third-base coach Tony Perezchica tell him the ball had been caught?
“He didn’t know it, either,” Trammell said. “Maybe he saw something I didn’t, so he was like, ‘Keep going.’ It is what it is.”
A day later, Trammell appreciates the humor in all of it, especially after hitting such a clutch home run on Tuesday.
“It’s a funny meme now,” he said. “Hopefully, it’s my last meme. I feel good with it. It’s little things like that that get you ready for today’s game.”
The Astros had been trying to add a left-handed-hitting outfielder since the offseason and pulled off a trade Monday for Toronto’s Daulton Varsho to fill that void. Trammell, who hits left-handed, has been doing his part lately, as well. He has a 1.068 OPS with eight runs, three homers, seven RBIs and seven walks in nine games since July 26.
“Just getting out there and just trying to help the team as much as possible,” he said.