LOS ANGELES -- A game-ending unassisted double play by the second baseman -- at FIRST base -- with Shohei Ohtani involved? The final moments of the Marlins’ 3-2 win over the Dodgers on Wednesday in Los Angeles sure merit a second look.
The Dodgers appeared to be mounting a late rally against Miami in the bottom of the ninth, as Hyeseong Kim and Alex Call worked walks to start the inning. Alex Freeland’s sac bunt put the winning run in scoring position, and with first base open, Marlins manager Clayton McCullough decided to intentionally walk Ohtani.
Then Freddie Freeman tapped a soft ground ball toward Miami second baseman Xavier Edwards, and that’s when things got a little weird.
Luckily for the Marlins, infield coach Blake Butler and bench coach Carson Vitale spent a considerable amount of time going through unique plays on the back fields of Spring Training -- just in case such a situation arose.
“We play the infield in a lot; we play that three depth [alignment] a lot,” McCullough said. “One thing we said going back to last year is we need to practice it a lot, and so we do. … [They do a] great job of helping, continuing to talk to the guys about thinking through scenarios and where the ball is and what you might do. And at the end of the day, the players have to go out there and do it.”
With the potential tying run in Kim charging down the third-base line toward the plate, Edwards snagged the chopper and sprinted toward first base as Ohtani retreated, intending to avoid a tag and give Kim time to score.
Connor Norby, who didn’t begin playing first base until this spring, saw the play evolve before his eyes. Before the pitch, there was an understanding that every infielder would throw home -- unless the pace of the ball lent itself to a potential double-play situation.
“In my head, I'm like, ‘He's going [home],’ and then he didn't,” Norby said of Edwards. “And then my thought was, ‘Now, he's going to try to turn it.’ And then he didn't do that either. And then I was like, ‘Oh my God, he's running at me. I don't know why I'm still hanging on the base.’ I guess, habit, in case he does flip it -- I've got to stay ready. He didn't do any of the first two options that I was thinking he was going to do.”
Ohtani was ultimately ruled out of the baseline for the second out just as Edwards tagged him anyway before dragging his foot across the bag to retire Freeman, who had just a 22.5 feet per second sprint speed on the play (27 ft/sec is average, per Statcast).
As it turned out, the order of operations there was important: Retiring Ohtani first meant the play on Freeman was a force at first, ending the game and keeping Kim’s potential game-tying run off the board. Had Edwards touched the base BEFORE getting Ohtani out, Kim’s run would have counted if he reached the plate before Ohtani was called out.
“Definitely a lot of instinct,” Edwards said. “We practice that infield in-ish play -- like we're halfway. The type of runner that Freddie is, I knew that at least if the ball is hit to me, I was going to try to go for a double play unless I absolutely couldn't. I felt I got a ball I could. I took a good angle to it, kind of cut it down, caught the ball close to the baseline, so I guess I left Ohtani no choice but to retreat. And from that point, it was just, 'I’ve got to run him down and touch first afterward.'”
With a bit of uncertainty regarding the timing of the play, the Dodgers used their challenge to contest the double-play call, but the ruling was confirmed to end the game.
Thanks to some heads-up baseball by Edwards, the Marlins secured their first series win at Dodger Stadium since April 2018.
“That was definitely a crazy one,” Edwards said. “Very glad we got it. Walk-off hits happen all the time, but double plays like that -- [with the] bases loaded -- don't happen all the time. That was crazy.”