Pedro Alvarez experiences highs and lows on one play: Makes great diving stop ... then drops ball

Rarely do I see a baseball player do something and say to myself, "I know how that feels." Normally they are just too athletically gifted, too coordinated, too smooth to ever seem identifiable to me -- a man who just today tripped over an open dishwasher and watched as two halves of a peanut butter English muffin landed face down on the carpet ... before then falling on top of said English muffins. 

Thursday's Pirates-Cardinals game was a different story. In the bottom of the sixth inning, Pedro Alvarez dove far to his right to make a great diving stop on Jason Heyward's ground ball to the hole. Unfortunately, when it was his time to sprint to first base, the ball didn't make the trip with him: 

It's a feeling I know all too well --thinking you've done something great before realizing that something has gone terribly wrong. But while Alvarez's was on the field, mine are usually more mundane. Like when I decide to make dinner for everyone and realize that I used sugar instead of salt. Or that I just straight up forgot to include the main ingredient. 

As for Alvarez, the rest of his day was much better. The slugger was 3-for-4 including a first inning two-run shot in the Pirates' 10-5 win.