St. Marys – When you're making an early run at the Rookie of the Year award, it is never a bad thing to associate yourself with a pair of former Most Valuable Players.
Toronto's Joey Votto did just that Wednesday evening, launching three rockets in leading Cincinnati to a 9-0 shellacking of the Chicago Cubs. Former American League MVP Justin Morneau was the last Canadian to accomplish the feat when he drilled three taters in Chicago on July 6, 2007.
The only other Canuck to match Votto and Morneau's Herculean mark was former National League MVP Larry Walker - and Walker did it three separate occasions! In amassing his Canadian-best 383 dingers, Walker hit the trifecta in Montreal on April 5, 1997, in St. Louis on April 28, 1999 and then again in Cleveland on June 25th, 2004.
Votto, who now has seven homeruns on the season with a .302 batting average and 18 RBI, hit his team's first of seven homeruns, a Great American Ballpark record, in the second inning when he jerked a Jon Lieber slider into the right field seats. After walking and stealing his first base of the campaign in the third inning, the left-handed slugger took a Sean Marshall 2-0 fastball the opposite way to deep left centre field in the fifth. An inning later, he hammered a Sean Gallagher offering to almost the exact same place, and received a curtain call afterwards.
The 6'3", 220-pounder grounded out in his final at bat in the bottom of the eighth inning. He finished the game with four RBI.
"Sometimes, you have games like this and you don't know why things go so well," the second-round draft pick by the Reds in 2002 told mlb.com afterwards.
"You kind of go with the flow."
Votto, who made his major league debut on September 4, 2007, now has eleven career homeruns, including his first major league hit in his first major league start off of John Maine on September 5, 2007. The bat Votto used that day is on display at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum in St. Marys, Ontario.
PLEASE NOTE: 2008 SUMMER CAMPS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
* Week-long camps (drop off Sunday, pick-up Saturday), including
accommodation & meals
* Focus on baseball FUNdamentals, swimming, soccer & tennis, trip to Rogers Centre
* Social Justice and Cultural Awareness programs incorporated
* Baseball Celebrities to take part
KEY DATES IN 2007-2008:
June 27, 2008 – 12th Annual Celebrity Golf Classic
June 28, 2008 – 2008 Induction Ceremony at 11am
July 6, 2008 – Team Canada games
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