Angels’ Mike Trout, like Yasiel Puig, can generate serious velocity

HOUSTON — The velocity of the home run off Mike Trout’s bat Friday night was about the same as the speed Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig was clocked at in his white Mercedes when he was arrested in South Florida in December.

In other words, it was really, really fast.

According to ESPN’s home run tracker, Trout’s first-inning rocket to left field off Houston Astros right-hander Lucas Harrell left the bat at 111.6 mph. The average speed off the bat for all of the home runs hit in the first week of the season through Friday was 103.3 mph.

Puig, by the way, was clocked at 110 mph in December, though the charges against him were eventually dropped.

“I knew I hit it good, and it had a little top spin on it,” said the Angels center fielder, whose shot jump-started his team toward an 11-1 victory. “It was one of those balls you don’t feel off the bat. It feels good when you square up a ball like that.”

Though the homer clanged off one of the advertising signs above the left-field wall, creating a loud sound that echoed through Minute Maid Park, ESPN estimated the distance of the shot at 413 feet.

Not quite the distance and velocity of the homer Miami’s Giancarlo Stanton hit against the San Diego Padres on Friday night, a 484-foot blast that left the bat at 118.8 mph, but still pretty impressive.

“It’s cool they keep the distances of all the home runs,” Trout said. “You can’t do anything these days without attaching a statistic to it.”