WASHINGTON – It was the kind of play Jacob Young had practiced many times.
Maybe even when he was a teenager playing travel ball in Florida with Riley Greene.
The years of Young honing skills, improving focus and combining it with natural instinct led to an incredible Major League home run robbery – of Greene.
In a Cirque du Soleil-esque feat, Young scaled the center-field wall at Nationals Park to pull the hot-hitting Greene’s deep fly ball back into play in the ninth inning of the Nationals’ 9-4 win over the American League-leading Tigers.
"I didn't watch the replay, and I'm not going to,” Greene said jokingly. “It was an incredible catch. I've never seen anything like it … He was a really good player then and still is."
The jaw-dropping defensive play stunned those on the field and in the dugout, and sparked a roaring in-game standing ovation from the ecstatic crowd.
“Probably the best catch that I’ve seen in person,” said 10-year veteran Josh Bell.
“I blacked out,” said Kyle Finnegan.
Finnegan was on the mound to fend off a Tigers’ comeback attempt when Greene, who homered twice in Game 1 of the doubleheader, belted a fly ball 388 feet into center field. Young, a 2024 Gold Glove Award finalist, was anticipating the damage Greene could do at the plate. He had prepared for moments like this.
“I think ever since you were five years old, you've scaled the wall to try to do cool things,” said Young. “But it's very hard to keep your eye on the ball as you’re scaling the wall trying to figure it out. So just practicing taking your eye off the ball and picking it back up, stuff like that. Then it kind of all incorporates to one big play at one time -- a lot of little things kind of lead up to that one big play.”
All those little things translated into Young planting his right foot to climb up the wall, supporting himself with his right arm against the wall and extending his left glove arm over the wall at an angle to pull off the robbery.
“I thought it was going to keep on carrying,” said Young. “I think it kind of died as it got closer to the wall. As I got up to the wall, I noticed that it wasn’t as high as I thought. So it was just like adjusting your glove down to almost side-catch it more than anything.”
Because of the level of difficulty and the angle of Young’s glove, many of the players didn’t realize the outcome until they saw the proof of the catch.
“I didn’t think he caught it until he threw the ball back in,” Bell said. “I think we all had the same reaction, which was, ‘Holy smokes!’”
Luis García Jr. made the Spider-Man signal from second base. A stunned Finnegan threw his arms up and exclaimed on the mound as the second out of the inning was dramatically recorded.
“It was amazing,” said Finnegan. “He’s so good going backwards, going back to the wall. He’s had a lot of time out there now, so he really knows that weird part of the field. He just seemed like he had a beat on it, and he timed the jump perfectly. A lot of times your foot slips when you try to catapult off the wall. He made it look routine.”
Nationals manager Dave Martinez, who played over 1,500 games in the outfield, appreciated from experience how that play was far from routine.
“When you scale the wall like that, it’s hard to focus and concentrate on the ball because you’re trying to get up,” said Martinez. “He got himself set perfectly, got back there and timed it perfectly.”
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch lauded the play from the visitors’ dugout.
"I saw one of the most acrobatic catches that I have ever seen, scaling the wall and getting up top,” Hinch said. “Thankfully it wasn't in a one-run game. That was an incredible catch. I’m glad he threw it in quickly because you couldn't see whether he caught it or not. There was no doubt once he threw the ball in."
The catch happened so fast, Young didn’t have time to process it in real time. Once he landed on his feet -- and realized he had been much higher up than he thought -- he was greeted by the ovation.
“I saw Finnegan kind of step off where he did, and I heard everyone start clapping,” Young said. “That was a cool moment. You don’t get to experience that a lot in general. It’s really cool when the fans notice something like that and give you kudos. It was really fun.”