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Wednesday’s Hot Clicks: The Best Moments From a Truly Wild Night in Baseball
What a wild, wild night
I’m going to keep this brief because I want to get to the good stuff: Holy crap, so much awesome stuff happened last night in baseball.
Trea Turner hit for the cycle against the Rockies for the second time in his career, becoming the 26th player in history with multiple cycles and the first to do it against the Colorado outside of Coors Field. Robinson Cano had his first career three-homer game at the age of 36, the oldest second baseman to ever hit three dingers in a game. The Tigers-Phillies game went 15 innings.
The Cubs and Giants played 13 innings before Pablo Sandoval golfed one out for the walk-off.
Mike Trout hit a ball all the way to Anaheim and threw a perfect 98 mph strike to nail a runner at home.
Kole Calhoun caught Cody Bellinger dead in the water for the final out of the game.
But the crown jewel of the day was an insane Yankees-Twins game that ended with what might have been the best catch of the year.
The Yankees trailed 8–2 before storming all the way back to take the lead on a Didi Gregorius double in the eighth, 10–9. That was the first of four lead changes in the final three innings. Miguel Sano’s two-run shot in the bottom of the eighth made it 11–10 in favor of Minnesota before Aaron Hicks (more on him later) put New York back on top, 12–11, with a homer of his own in the ninth. Jorge Polanco’s sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth sent the game to extras.
After the Yankees scored two in the top of the tenth, Adam Ottavino did his best to send the game to the 11th by walking three batters in the bottom half of the inning. With the bases loaded and two out, Chad Green was summoned to try to get the final out. That’s when Hicks did this:
“That was a do-or-die play that needed to be made to end the game,” Hicks said after the game.
“I just got a great jump. I had a feeling that a feeling that (Kepler) was going to hit it that way based on where (Yankees catcher Austin Romine) was set up,” he added. “I don’t know. I just had a hunch and I was able to get a good read and I was able to make the catch.”
You can’t complain about this being a dead period on the sports calendar when there’s stuff like that happening all in one night.
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Around the sports world
The costumes players wore during the Korean all-star game are outstanding. ... The Dodgers are making $100 million worth of renevations to their stadium. ... Adrian Peterson reportedly has some serious financial issues. ... An Indonesian racing pigeon sold for $100,000.
Shane Lowry got quite the reception in his hometown
Can’t we have some parts of the stadium that aren’t ads?
“Right down Main Street... but it’s wide!”
This has to be money laundering
Got ’em
In case anyone needs a transfusion
Sounds like a solid break
Not sports
Canada is going to airlift some migrating salmon who got stuck behind rocks. ... An Australian man was busted with $140 million worth of meth after crashing a van transporting the drugs into a parked police car. ... A New York restaurant is selling a bacon, egg and cheese with caviar for $35.
That’s one clever bear
That’s not how you deliver a TV
That’s too many noodles
A good song
Email dan.gartland@simail.com with any feedback or follow me on Twitter for approximately one half-decent baseball joke per week. Bookmark this page to see previous editions of Hot Clicks and find the newest edition every day. By popular request I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the music featured here. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.
