The Cardinals turn a 3-2-8 double play, a breakdown
What Happened
In the bottom of the second inning of a matchup between the St. Louis Cardinals and Cleveland Guardians, the Guardians hold a 4-0 lead. Veteran catcher Yadier Molina of the Cardinals steps up to the plate with runners on first and third base and aims to turn a double play to prevent further damage. Molina fields a ground ball and quickly fires the ball home, where first baseman Paul Goldschmidt applies the tag on the runner trying to score from third. Molina then chases the runner back towards third base before throwing to second baseman Tommy Edman, who completes the unusual 3-2-8 double play. "Yadier Molina does that," Molina says afterwards. "He checks the runner at third, then goes after the guy at second. It's a heads-up play." The play is a rare one, with the centerfielder coming in to cover second base as the Cardinals turn two. Guardians third baseman José Ramírez initially breaks for home on contact but retreats, allowing Molina to get the out at second base. "I'm not sure what José was doing there," Guardians shortstop Amed Rosario admits. "He should have just gone straight back to second base instead of hesitating." Despite the impressive defensive play, the Guardians blow the game open in the next at-bat. First baseman Josh Naylor hits a three-run homer, extending Cleveland's lead to 6-0. The Cardinals are unable to mount a comeback, ultimately falling by that same 6-0 score. Though the Cardinals' comeback falls short, the 3-2-8 double play orchestrated by the veteran Molina is the highlight of the game. The savvy veteran demonstrates his baseball IQ and impressive defensive skills, turning what could have been a big inning for the Guardians into an inning-ending twin-killing.
Full Transcript
Click timestamps to jump to that momentthis one's from a couple days ago but
it's a fun baseball play and it's in the
request list so i'm talking about it
whether you like it or not
cardinals indians indians are up four
nothing in the second
inning and the cardinals are gonna try
and stop the bleeding it's first
and third double play no let's get the
out at home and stop another run from
scoring
chase him back to third yachty does that
he moves on to jose
he chases him back to second then they
got two runners there
what's going on centerfielder comes in
double play
the three two eight double play rarely
seen
what's interesting here is just kind of
bad base running
runner on third he breaks for home like
he wasn't going on contact maybe he was
going on soft contact but i mean he's
not even close
goldie easily comes home with it they
try to cut him off
yada you can see him check out ramirez
there he's like all right so i'll get
this guy out and then i will move on to
jose get out of my way i'm on a mission
pump fakes once look some back like a
quarterback
you get a fist pump you get a fist punch
no one's covering first base because the
first baseman
and the pitcher were both covering home
jose sees that tells lindor hey no one's
covering first go back to first
and i'll go to second but i don't get
what jose does here
because you can see yachty look in the
first base lindor
books it and yadi either yachty knows
what's happening
which a lot of cardinals fans will
probably believe that he
he navigated this he knew exactly or he
he realizes
because if he knows what's going on it's
pretty cool it's pretty cool if yaddy
knows exactly what he's doing because
you get
the pump fake and then you get the look
away and then you get the sneaky play
there
but what the hell was jose ramirez doing
why didn't he just run back and put his
foot on second
once he tells lindor to take off you
know and go back to first why does he
hover why does he stay just off the back
why doesn't he just go straight to the
back
the sneaky play to the center fielder
double play
jose is not happy with himself very
upset
head in hands a little cry face little
pout face but then he's gonna recover
and say okay
don't worry about it on to the next one
his teammate santana was up next gets a
3-1 pitch
pops that over the fence for a home run
to make it six nothing and all of a
sudden no one cares about the cool
double play anymore
at all