Had Royals outfielder Drew Waters pulled this off, it would have been one of the great plays at the plate in recent memory.
With Kansas City and San Diego tied at two in the ninth on Sunday afternoon, Freddy Fermin knocked a base hit into the right-center-field gap, and Waters started his race around the bases from first. Waters was motoring at 28.4 feet per second (the MLB average is 27.0), but Padres infielder Jose Iglesias made a perfect relay throw home that got to catcher Elias Díaz in plenty of time.
That was when Waters tried to improvise. His initial slide was a heroic attempt on its own, a fully airborne Superman-style leap while torquing his body to somehow evade Díaz's tag. The home-plate umpire did not signal anything, which meant if Waters could just get back to reach the plate, he'd put the Royals ahead.
At that point, with Díaz blocking his path, Waters turned into a wide receiver with one safety to beat. Padres manager Mike Shildt preferred to liken it to a "dance-off." He gave the San Diego backstop one juke that initially put Díaz off-balance, but it wasn't quite enough. He tried taking a roundabout route, but like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar, he knew he was caught, and ultimately Waters was called out for going out of the basepath.
“It looked like he stumbled a little coming around third, but I mean he had nowhere to go," said Royals catcher Salvador Perez. "The throw took Díaz right into the basepath, and there was nowhere for Drew to go.”
Nowhere to go indeed, though Waters gave it every effort. And he came oh so close to joining Chris Coghlan in the canon of incredible plays at the plate. There's never a bad time to revisit that one.