Jhonathan Díaz has quite the arm, er, arms.
In Saturday night's Triple-A game between Sacramento and Tacoma at Cheney Stadium, the lefty turned a fairly routine play into something not at all routine. Except maybe for him. We'll explain.
In the fourth inning, Díaz fielded a dribbler off the bat of Sacramento's Eddys Leonard that rolled between the mound and home plate near the third-base side. Nothing out of the ordinary, right? Well ...
Rather than field the ball with his throwing hand, Díaz took off his glove, picked up the ball with his right hand and fired a strike to first for the out. Perhaps he did it to save time for a quicker throw, or maybe it was just for a better angle to first. Either way, it was impressive.
"You might never see that again," the announcer exclaims.
Then again, we might. From Díaz.
See, he pulled off a strikingly similar play two years ago in a game against Reno, when he fielded a dribbler, fielded it with his non-throwing hand and recorded an out at first on a bounce. It's happened at least once in the big leagues, too. That came in 2018, when the Phillies' Vince Velasquez pulled it off, though it a more painful way.
Ambidexterity for the win. Or, at least, the out.
Despite Díaz's feat on Saturday, he took the loss in the Rainers' 7-2 defeat against the River Cats.