KC Royals: Lorenzo Cain Leaps Measured By Sports Science

Kansas City Royals center-fielder Lorenzo Cain put on a display for ESPN series Sports Science, allowing host John Ferkus to break down Cain’s leaping ability that enables his show-stopping plays in the outfield.

Sports Science is a program dedicated to measuring the bio-mechanics behind the most extreme skills in sports. This week, the Sports Science crew wanted to find out how KC Royals outfielder Lorenzo Cain robbed major-league hitters of home runs.

You can see the video by clicking below:

Sports Science discovered that Lorenzo Cain reacted to the ball off a hitter’s bat in .23 seconds. Cain’s reaction is so fast that he’s often heading back BEFORE he hears the crack of the bat, since sound takes .27 seconds to travel 300 feet.

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When Cain reaches the end of the warning track in Kauffman Stadium, he leaps with over 900 pounds of force to propel himself above the wall. Not only does his body have to generate a lot of muscle power, Lorenzo Cain must also use perfect timing.

According to Sports Science, Cain must jump half a second before the ball arrives. If Cain is as much as a tenth of a second off, he can miss the ball because he won’t catch it at the apex of his jump.

Sports Science measured Lorenzo Cain’s vertical leap at 39 inches, letting him reach 11 feet, 3 inches above the ground. That’s high enough to steal a home run over every center-field fence in the American League, except for the 18-foot wall at Bostons’s Fenway Park.

Cain’s athleticism inspired Sports Science to think of circus stunts, causing them to point out that Cain could jump so high that he could catch a ball over the back of an elephant.

Who knows, maybe Lorenzo Cain could find himself a part-time gig at Circus Circus during the off-season.

Before last year’s playoff heroics, KC Royals players were pretty much an afterthought among pundits outside the Kansas City area. That Sports Science chose Lorenzo Cain for their inquiry shows just how much the KC Royals playoff run raised the team’s profile among baseball fans across the country. Now, the national media regularly carries stories about the Kansas City Royals.

In many way, Lorenzo Cain was the Kansas City Royals breakout star in October. Not only did he have an outstanding post-season, Cain embodied the speed and defense first Royals to a T.

Lorenzo Cain is the ringleader of a Royals team that makes defense fun.

Next: Five Key Offensive Players For The KC Royals In 2015

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