Very little was expected of the Colorado Rockies to begin the 2016 season. Incredibly, even less was expected of their new starting shortstop.
It was not unexpected that Trevor Story would begin the season as the team’s shortstop. Last year’s Opening Day starter was Troy Tulowitzki; he was dealt to the Blue Jays at the trade deadline for fellow shortstop Jose Reyes. Reyes, though, was arrested in the offseason on a domestic violence charge in Hawaii.
Therefore, it would be Story to fill in for him. And it looks like he’s done more than just fill in.
The Rockies opened their season on Monday against the Arizona Diamondbacks; the game also happened to be the Diamondback debut of ace Zack Greinke. In a stunning turn of events, Greinke imploded, giving up seven runs in just four innings in one of the worst starts of his career.
As for Story, he would ground out to third in the first at-bat of his career. In his second one, however, he would take the $206.5 million dollar man over the right field wall.
A home run in your first career game? That’s great! It can’t get much better than that, can it? Oh, yes it can.
And yes, it did get better for Trevor Story on Monday night. In the fourth inning, he would take Greinke deep again for home run number two on the night and in his young career.
So in the first three Major League at-bats of his life, Trevor Story hit a home run in two of them. Essentially, he played MLB 16: The Show on the easiest difficulty setting. And he would come close to repeating his performance one night later.
In the fourth inning of Tuesday night’s game, Story stepped in to face the Diamondbacks’ other newly-acquired mound presence, Shelby Miller. On the second pitch of the at-bat, he would step out in the form of a 436-foot home run to left center field. In an extremely pedestrian performance, it would be his only home run of the night (that’s sarcasm). The team would lose 11-6, but no one really cared. This was and is a story about Trevor.
But for as great as Story’s first two games were, could he make history and become the first player to ever hit four home runs in his first three big league games? We got our answer on Wednesday; it was in the affirmative. Story would hit a 434-foot homer to almost the same place he hit Tuesday’s dinger. In the process, he made MLB history and went to a place no rookie had ever gone before.
And then he took it one step further. In Friday night’s game, Story would hit another two home runs, making it six home runs in the first four games of his career. He was on pace for 243 home runs, a pace that some would argue is unsustainable (obviously). The historic, unprecedented four-game run marked the first time in which a player hit a home run in each of his first four games. The streak would end on Saturday only to continue when Story hit a home run the next day in a win over the Padres.
So, to recap: seven home runs, six games. And if you lost track, it’s just fine; this Vine will help you avoid making that mistake (h/t Matt Allaire):
But here’s the problem: can he keep it up?
Clearly, his current pace is utterly unsustainable. The home run record for a single season is 73; Story is on pace for 189. There’s no way on the planet that Trevor Story (or anyone else in the sport) even comes close to that figure. But can he hit 30 longballs? 35? Those amounts would seem a little more reasonable, but expecting even this may be too much to ask of the rookie.
For example, look into his past. Not to say that there’s anything wrong with this, but Story’s highest total of regular season home runs in a season is 20; he did this last year in half a season in AA and AAA each. He’s a good hitter, having hit .279 in the minors last season, but he has never hit more than 20 bombs in a single season. Therefore, asking him to hit 30, never mind 40 or 50 like some have speculated, is likely a little too much.
Also, there’s a chance that Story doesn’t pan out at all. When he began the season on his absurd tear, the first two players who entered the minds of many were Chris Shelton and Kevin Maas. Maas was the Yankees’ first baseman who, at the beginning of the 1990 season, hit ten home runs in his first 72 at-bats. He would be out of the big leagues on an everyday basis by 1992. Similar was the case for Shelton, who hit nine home runs in his first thirteen games as the Detroit Tigers’ designated hitter in 2006. Shelton would be sent down to AAA at the end of July following a precipitous drop in his production from the start of the season; he would never play a full Major League season in his career.
However, there’s every chance in the world that Trevor Story will turn out to be a good player. If he continues to hit consistently (even as his power predictably wanes) he will be one of the best shortstops in the game. His power, though, has been carrying him through the beginning of the season, and he will need to find a more consistent offensive approach if he wants to have a long career in the majors.
With all of this being said, let’s enjoy Trevor Story and his incredible, scorching-hot play while we still can.
It probably won’t last much longer.