In the first game of the doubleheader yesterday, Trevor Cahill – now a reliever – got in a couple great innings of work. As part of the deal when you’re the first long reliever in after a starter leaves the game early, Cahill even got a chance to head to the plate.
Facing Gerrit Cole, it was reasonable to expect a short, silly-looking at bat.
But then Cahill hit a liner! It’s a single to right! Off of Gerrit Cole! … er, um, nope:
Gregory Polanco is, of course, a jerk for making that play at first base, though I understand why he did it, what with the desire to win the game and all.
In all seriousness, that was a really great, heady play by Polanco to come up firing. Because of his defensive position and the placement of the hard liner, Cahill actually never had a chance. It’s not like he was loafing it out of the box – it was just the perfect storm for one of the rarest plays you’ll see.
To make things better, I’ll remind folks of what Cahill has done as a long reliever for the Cubs thus far: 8.1 innings of 2.16 ERA/2.79 FIP/1.76 xFIP action.