Watch: Pirates' pitcher executes brilliant piece of fielding most wouldn't even attempt
The pitcher is the second most-specialized position in baseball. Only the designated hitter elicits a greater sense of “you had one job” on the diamond.
So when a pitcher fields his position especially well, you just have to take your hat off to him the same way you do when the hurlers in the National League step up to bat and hit a home run to help their own cause.
Enter Joe Musgrove of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who uncorked a web gem worthy of a shortstop on a drag bunt from the Indians’ Michael Brantley Tuesday night.
In the bottom of the first inning, after Francisco Lindor led off the game with a double, Brantley surprised everyone by laying a drag bunt down the third base line.
And even though it goes into the box score as “Brantley sacrificed to pitcher, Lindor to third,” when the ball left Brantley’s bat, it had infield hit written all over it.
Musgrove, with the reaction time and agility of a cat, sprang into action out of his pitching motion, slid on the infield grass, snared the ball, popped right up, and threw a strike to first base just in time for the umpire to raise a fist and call Brantley out.
Joe Musgrove, pitcher, is athletic as heck.
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— Cut4 (@Cut4) July 25, 2018
And while Lindor scored on the next play when Jose Ramirez grounded out, that was all Cleveland could muster for runs in the first. They exited the inning down 2-1, the Pirates scored five in the second, and the rout was on.
Pittsburgh won the game 9-4 for its 11th consecutive victory.
This wasn’t even the first time Musgrove had pulled off a feat of derring-do like this before.
“I’m always someone that’s ready to field the ball when it’s hit off the mound,” he said after the game to MLB.com’s Adam Berry. “I made that exact same play two years ago in Triple-A. It’s just instinct. You just kind of react to it.”
Pirates skipper Clint Hurdle was similarly impressed.
“He’s probably our second-best athlete on the club overall behind [Starling Marte],” said manager Clint Hurdle of Musgrove’s gem. “There’s nothing he can’t do athletically. That’s a fantastic play in the first inning. Who knows where that inning goes if he doesn’t make that play?”
Well, if we start with the assumption that the groundout from Ramirez didn’t result in a double play, Edwin Encarnacion hit a single with the bases empty and two out; at best, that would’ve given the Indians runners on first and third with one out.
At worst, Brantley scores, it’s 2-2, and Musgrove’s facing the same one-out problem and is forced to get out of the inning with his nerves rattled.
Instead, Musgrove had a fantastic start, giving some needed rest to the middle relievers by going seven innings, giving up just two runs on five hits.
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