An unassisted double play isn’t exactly the craziest play in baseball. But an unassisted double play by the center fielder? Now we’re talking.
In the fourth inning of Thursday night’s game against the Houston Astros, Los Angeles Angels batter Matt Joyce hit a shallow fly ball to center, which Jake Marisnick sprinted in on to make the running catch.
That’s when things got a little weird.
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Marisnick’s catch represented the inning’s second out, but apparently Albert Pujols, who had been on first base, wasn’t aware. Thinking the inning was over, Pujols casually jogged past second base, allowing Marisnick to just keep on running toward first to conveniently double off Pujols on his way to the dugout.
That goes down in the scorebook as an 8-unassisted, which certainly is something you don’t see every day.
“I saw him rounding the base, so I just kept jogging in and figured I might as well just touch first base and eliminate the possibility of throwing it away,” Marisnick said after the game, via The Associated Press.
Pujols was the victim of another strange play in the eighth inning, when his line drive that could have tied the game hit baserunner Chris Iannetta in the shortstop hole, ruling Ianetta out. The Angels lost 3-2.
