Jaw-dropping finishes: Not 1, not 2, THREE
Baseball fans have seen plenty of walk-off home runs this season (Daniel Vogelbach, anyone?), but Wednesday marked a night for the “walk-off web gem.”
Wednesday’s MLB slate saw three different players make dazzling defensive plays to secure the final out for their clubs. The first came at Fenway Park, where Hunter Renfroe backed up his teammate Danny Santana after Santana missed on a diving catch attempt in center field. Renfroe corralled the ball and fired a 90.7 mph strike to third base, per Statcast, that caught Tampa Bay’s Joey Wendle trying to stretch a double into a triple. Renfroe, who had just knocked a go-ahead, two-run homer the inning before, sealed a tight 2-1 victory for Boston with his MLB-most 16th outfield assist of the year.
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Soon after in the Bronx, the Blue Jays picked up their seventh straight win against the struggling Yankees. Center fielder Jarrod Dyson used his trademark speed to sprint behind him and to his right and cover 81 feet in 4.6 seconds, finishing that effort with a sliding catch on Brett Gardner’s drive to the warning track. Statcast gave Dyson a 50 percent probability of making the play, based on that time and distance, and it finalized a 6-3 win for Toronto.
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Finally in Milwaukee, shortstop Luis Urías helped Brewers closer Josh Hader get the last out of the Brewers’ 4-3 win over the Phillies by plucking Andrew McCutchen’s hotshot liner out of the air. Cutch’s lineout left his bat at 98.1 mph, per Statcast, and had a hangtime of just 1.3 seconds before Urías gloved it with a full-extension dive.
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