Celebrate the 2017 National League Gold Glove winners with their finest defensive work
Great defense manifests in many different ways: Robbing a home run, making a diving play in the infield, scooping a ball in the dirt at first and catching a runner stealing second base all rightly populate defensive highlight reels. The Gold Glove Awards exist to honor all varieties of great defense.
Tuesday night, the 2017 Gold Glove Award winners were announced, so we have nine GIFs of the National League winners below.
P:
Greinke just won his fourth consecutive Gold Glove because not many pitchers can make a leaping stop then casually turn a double play.
C:
Catching a batted ball as a catcher is a multi-step process. First, come out of the crouch. Then, flip the mask off. Find the ball. Get to the ball. Make the catch. Barnhart does all of that very quickly.
1B:
Some players have vertical range. Others have horizontal range. Gold Glovers have both, which is why Goldschmidt has now won the award 3 of the last 5 years.
2B:
Making a diving stop, a throw from your knees or a spinning throw is hard enough if you're only trying to do one on them at a time. LeMahieu can do all three in the same play.
3B:
There's range and then there's field-a-bunt-on-the-first-base-side-of-the-pitcher's-mound range. Arenado is blessed with the latter.
SS:
Crawford does everything well at shortstop. Sometimes he even does everything in a single play:
LF:
Hitters trying to hit a ball over the left-field fence at Marlins Park often found Ozuna just sort of just hanging on the wall ready to thwart their efforts.
CF:
Watching Inciarte play center field makes one reevaluate what a catchable ball is. There's no way anyone can catch this ball; that is, until Inciarte caught it:
RF:
This is Heyward's fourth consecutive Gold Glove in right field. The only question about his defense is how many more will he win?
