Triple plays are pretty rare events in modern Major League Baseball (except when the White Sox pulled off three in 2016 – remember that?). Indeed, there were only seven in baseball all of last season. And only *one* this year, before last night.
Yes, last night, the Texas Rangers pulled off just the second triple play of the entire season. Or did they? Yeah, they did. Or wait, was it? When the ball … If the runner was on third at the time …
Oh, forget it, just watch for yourself:
Can't. Stop. Watching. pic.twitter.com/FV1WApLpqA
— Texas Rangers (@Rangers) August 17, 2018
Alright, so … what!?
Once you pause and take a second to realize what’s going on, it’s not actually that difficult to figure out (Mars was in orbit, and the moons of Jupiter had all aligned), but it actually gets a little weirder. Why? Because the batter was not one of the three outs and it’s been 106 years (!) since that’s last happened, per MLB.com.
Here’s how it went down.
With the bases loaded and no outs in the top of the fourth inning, David Fletcher hit a grounder to the Rangers third baseman, Jurickson Profar. Profar immediately stepped on third base for the force (out #1) before tagging Taylor Ward (out #2) who actually thought Profar had caught the ball on a fly. Profar then through the ball to second baseman Rougned Odor who stepped on second for the force (out #3), before he proceeded to run at the original batter from first to tag tag him out for the fourth out, which, doesn’t exist.
It was confusing.