It is one of the most rare, most impressive, and most wild plays that can happen in a baseball game: the straight steal of home. When you think about how stealing any other base requires two throws, it’s pretty incredible that a steal of home can ever happen. But in the era of extreme shifting, in theory, runners at third could get even larger and larger leads, and reintroduce the long-forgotten art of stealing home.
Like Randy Arozarena did in the freaking PLAYOFFS against the Boston Red Sox. The Tampa Bay Rays outfielder observed a tendency by lefty Josh Taylor to really take his time getting set and not checking third at all, so Arozarena got a huge sprinting lead:
Randy Arozarena is the first player to steal home in a #postseason game since 2016 😳 pic.twitter.com/a9Qvf8Bgfg
— MLB (@MLB) October 8, 2021
Arozarena, annually a postseason hero apparently, also homered in the 5-0 win in Game One of their ALDS match-up. As the tweet notes, he is the first player to steal home in the postseason since Javy Báez pulled it off against the Dodgers in the 2016 NLCS.
That play, of course, was more about El Mago baiting the catcher into a throw, rather than a straight steal. But it was still a lot of fun:
— RISPy Booooosiness 👻 (@Melissybk) October 8, 2021