Longoria: Coors Field yields more triples

July 19th, 2016

DENVER -- Prior to Monday night's 7-4 loss to the Rockies at Coors Field, Rays third baseman had two triples in his prior 429 games.
It took him four plate appearances to equal that number Monday night.
In his first trip to the plate, Longoria drove a 2-1 cutter from Rockies left-hander into the left-center-field gap for his first three-bagger of the game, driving in the Rays' first run.
Longoria led off the eighth inning with another triple, this one to right-center field on a 3-2 curveball from reliever . Though he represented the tying run 90 feet away, Longoria was stranded as Motte proceeded to strike out the side.
Longoria accomplished in four plate appearances Monday night what it had taken 1,835 plate appearances prior to that to accomplish.
"It's just the field," Longoria said. "It's just the big gaps, and the second one just got a good bounce off the wall. The first one got into the gap at the right spot and I was able to leg it out. It's a real big outfield -- you see a ton of triples here because of that."

Longoria is right: So far in 2016, there have been 37 triples hit at Coors Field in 43 games (0.86 triples per contest). That's the most in the Majors, with the closest being Chase Field in Arizona, where 40 have been hit in 50 games (0.80 triples per contest).
"I was just happy to get to third with less than two outs," Longoria said.
Longoria got to third in a big spot in the eighth. The only problem was, the Rays couldn't get him in from there.