Switch-hitters are common is baseball. We've even seen a switch-pitcher reach the professional ranks after the New York Yankees drafted Pat Venditte in 2008. Now we have Starling Marte, the Pittsburgh Pirates' switch-fielding outfielder in training who despite his best efforts to change glove hands in the middle of a play still couldn't corral Ryan Zimmerman's line drive into the left field corner.
Credit where it's due, though. The effort was there and the creativity certainly was there too. Ryan Zimmerman just hit his fourth inning line drive down the left field line into the perfect spot on Saturday afternoon, which caused a harder than expected carom and forced Marte to act quickly.
For some players, the natural instinct may have to dive or at least lunge towards the ball in an attempt to knock it down or at least slow it down. For Marte, the first instinct was to flip his glove onto his throwing hand and then awkwardly reach. The results were not good, as the ball squirted past Marte allowing Zimmerman to race around for a triple. He would later score on Adam LaRoche's sacrifice fly, and the Nationals would ultimately win the game 5-4, meaning the outcome of this play was actually very critical.
Unfortunate circumstances for Pittsburgh. But hey, we were all entertained regardless. And it's not like Marte had a complete stinker of an afternoon. In the third inning, he took Stephen Strasburg deep for a two-run homer that put Pittsburgh on the board.
He did that hitting right-handed, by the way. He's an all around righty, except on very rare occasions.
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