Last Night in Baseball: Giants walk off Rangers with play you have to see

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To set the scene: the game was tied, 2-2, in the bottom of the ninth inning in San Francisco. Luke Jackson was on the mound for the Rangers, Heliot Ramos at the plate for the Giants. What happened next can also not be explained with the help of Gameday’s description of the play, which reads: “Heliot Ramos singles on a soft ground ball to pitcher Luke Jackson. Heliot Ramos scores.”

Ramos did single on a soft ground ball to Jackson, yes, but just how soft might be a surprise considering it was enough to get a hit. And a whole lot went down between “singles” and “scores,” as well. Jackson fielded the ball and threw it to first while off-balance, and the throw went off the mark. The ball went past first base and off the wall in foul territory, then took a bounce into right field causing outfielder Adolis García to run in to retrieve it, though, not with as much urgency as was likely necessary. 

Ramos initially slowed up at second, then realized he could keep going since the ball was in no man’s land between García and first baseman Jake Burger, so he took off for third. Burger noticed this happening, finally grabbed the ball, turned, and threw to third… where it would bounce in front of Josh Smith – who had moved to the hot corner from shortstop earlier in the game – and go into shallow left field. Ramos was nearly halfway home before anyone on the Rangers got a handle on it again.

At basically no point in that sequence did the Rangers make a good decision. Jackson should have just held on to the ball instead of rushing a throw — Ramos was the first batter of the inning, and it was only a single, in a tie game. You’d prefer not to have the runner, of course, but consider the high probability of an errant throw that lets Ramos get into scoring position, and it would have been better to just hold it. García probably should have moved faster once the ball was even potentially his responsibility. Then you’ve got Burger throwing to third instead of just conceding the base to Ramos, who was going to be safe even if the throw had arrived accurately. And then there’s Smith realizing far too late that the ball was going to take its bounce at the same time Ramos was coming in on his slide, leaving him in a tough spot where he was basically forced to dive, where missing a dive would allow Ramos to score. Like he did. Basically the opposite of how heads up Ramos was from start to finish on the dinky little hit.

Since the defense actively gave away the game for the Rangers there, let’s focus on a few outstanding defensive plays next. You know, for balance.

Tatis Jr. has got an arm

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Fernando Tatis Jr. got his start somewhere besides the outfield, because his arm is both powerful and accurate. Here he is throwing a beautiful one hopper on the line to the plate, nabbing Jose Caballero on a play so close it went under review.

The first view makes it clear that it was a great throw, in the sense it got there on time, but the second angle in that video shows you just how accurate and level of a throw that was. A true laser. The Padres would end up losing to the Rays, 4-2, but still. Beautiful throw!

Simpson robs a homer 

Chandler Simpson recently got the call-up for the Rays, and while it’s unclear just how good he’s going to be in the bigs in the long run, there are reasons to be optimistic. He’s more than just speed, as he can make contact at a high rate and makes good decisions at the plate, as well, but he can also play some defense. As Manny Machado learned on Saturday, when Simpson took away a home run from him:

Simpson, by the way, is batting .400/.455/.433 over his first eight games and 33 plate appearances. He’s never going to hit for power, but if he can rack up the singles and draw some walks, that’s going to play.

Normally that’s not what assist means

What’s mind-blowing about this defensive stop is that there was absolutely no hesitation by shortstop J.P. Crawford about what he needed to do next. Not a fraction of a second. He fields this ball, hit up the middle by Marlins’ first baseman Eric Wagaman, in a way that forces him to hit the ground to do it. He immediately flips the ball from his glove to second baseman Miles Mastrobuoni, who seemed unfazed by Crawford’s nonverbal ask here, and throws to first in time to beat the runner.

Even writing it all out and having watched it multiple times, it’s still tough to believe that it not only worked, but that the two were so in sync and acted so instinctively on a very non-instinctive play.

Eugenio Suárez hits 4 homers

The weekend wasn’t all about defense (or the lack of it). Diamondbacks’ slugger Eugenio Suárez became the 19th player in MLB history to go deep four times in one game, and the first since 2017, when J.D. Martinez pulled it off.

Somehow, the D-backs still lost this game, despite Suárez’s best efforts — just the third time in history, per MLB, that a team with a four-home player lost, with the other two coming in 1986 (Bob Horner and the Braves) and in 1896, when Ed Delahanty and Philadelphia managed the feat. Next time, Suárez will just have to go deep five times.

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