Three's wild: Orioles turn bizarre triple play

BOSTON -- The Orioles pulled off one strange triple play at the expense of the Red Sox in Boston's 5-2 win on Tuesday night.
Making his first appearance after being activated from the disabled list earlier in the day, Zach Britton's return started a little rocky as he gave up a single to Mitch Moreland and a walk to Dustin Pedroia to start the eighth inning.
Then up stepped Jackie Bradley Jr. who skied a popup behind shortstop that looked to be a can of corn, but as the backtracking J.J. Hardy vehemently called off left fielder Trey Mancini, the ball fell between both players.
"He seemed to be facing the infield, just easing back. It wasn't like he had his back turned running to the ball. He was facing the infield telling the infielder he's got it," Moreland explained. "It's loud, I couldn't hear if they yelled infield fly. I'm sitting there looking at it like it's an infield fly because he hadn't turned his back. It threw me off at the end."
Confusion plagued the Sox runners and Hardy quickly fired to Jonathan Schoop who tagged Moreland as he stood a few steps off of second base, then the Orioles' second baseman stepped on the bag to force out Pedroia, who hadn't moved off of first.
Schoop completed the triple play when he threw to Chris Davis to record the force at first on Bradley, who peeled off the line and never touched the bag.
"Jonathan was really heads up on it," O's manager Buck Showalter said. "Really heads-up play. No one was aware what was going on. A lot of people would have thrown that ball directly to third, but J.J. was very aware what was going on, so was Jon."
It was the first triple play pulled off by the Orioles since they did it to Cleveland back on Sept. 1, 2000, though it wasn't the oddest seen by their manager.
"I've managed in extended spring and I've seen one crazier than that," Showalter said. "Had one that never hit leather on a triple play where guy passed a guy, it hit the other guy on the helmet and the other one was the infield fly. If you've been in extended spring like I have, you've seen it all."