Forget Joe Mauer's hand-eye coordination, he clearly has a sixth sense or natural instinct that no other mortal human being possesses.
As ridiculous as that sounds, it almost has to be true. Otherwise how can we explain what happened during the fifth inning of the Minnesota Twins game against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on Saturday afternoon?
On a foul ball straight back off the bat of former teammate Denard Span, Mauer casually turned to home umpire Tim Welke for a new ball. In the same motion, Mauer instinctively puts his catcher's mitt behind his back and snatches the ball out of the air cleanly as it caromed of the stone wall behind him without looking at it.
Just that calmly. Just that impossibly. Just that perfectly.
And as Eye on Baseball points out, it's not the first time Mauer has done this. During a game at Target Field last season, he did the same exact routine while snagging another foul ball off the wall without looking. To be honest, I'm so impressed by Mauer's grab that I think it should be given consideration as a sixth tool in which players are evaluated. Of course Mauer would probably be alone in that category, but it would be cool to see if anyone else could pull it off one time out a hundred.
It's remarkable, but you know what else was pretty cool about Joe Mauer's day on Saturday? This wasn't even the best part of his fifth inning. In the top half of the same frame, he launched his 100th career home run. That's more in line with what he gets paid to do, though admittedly he's more of a guy who hits for average. But seriously, how much better could one inning be?
Looking for more baseball chatter?
Follow @bigleaguestew, @Townie813, @AnswerDave and @MikeOz on Twitter
Also, check out the BLS Facebook Page
No comments:
Post a Comment