It has been a shortened game week in the Majors due to the All-Star break. Nevertheless, the stars of the game didn’t waste any time getting back in the swing of making spectacular plays all over the diamond. The All-Star festivities themselves had their own moments including Todd Frazier’s scintillating run to the Home Run Derby crown. Alas, there is only five spots here on Top of the Heap. Even a great home field story like Frazier’s can be left on the cutting room floor. Without further ado, here are the top five plays that defined the week that was in baseball.
5. Trout Leads Off All-Star Game With A Home Run
Mike Trout is a special player. That is a statement you’ve probably heard a thousand times over but with each game the wondrous Angels outfielder does something to really drive that point home. That goes double for his appearances in baseball’s mid-summer classic, the All-Star Game. Trout has now appeared in four consecutive All-Star Games and has started each one off with a hit. Without context, that doesn’t seem very special. Mike Trout doesn’t do ordinary though. With his first inning at-bat Tuesday, Trout completed a circuitous natural cycle of All-Star leadoff at-bats. To clarify, Trout hit a single in his first All-Star at-bat, double in his first at-bat of his second game, a triple in his first go-round last year, and hit a lead-off home run Monday. Since there is obviously no five base hit, Trout will have to get creative for his year five encore. It will have to do quite a bit to top this. He won his second straight All-Star MVP with the home run. The dinger also came off fellow a Los Angelean in the Dodgers’ Zack Greinke. In non All-Star Game work, Greinke has just a ho-hum 42 2/3 innings scoreless streak. Just another day at the office for the best in the business.
4. White Sox Infielders Get Fancy
Baseball is a simple sport in many ways. See the ball, hit the ball. See the ball, catch the ball. Still, creativity flows through the participants with great regularity that takes the potentially mundane and makes it great. Take for instance Friday’s game between the Royals and White Sox. With two outs in the eighth, Kendrys Morales would line a Dan Jennings up the middle for what looked like an easy single. Second baseman Carlos Sanchez was going to his right as the ball would have been tough for his teammate at short, Alexei Ramirez, to get to. The play would have been tough for Sanchez to make on his own as it would have taken a falling fadeaway jump throw to get even the plodding Morales. Instead, Sanchez used the momentum of himself and Ramirez to the White Sox advantage and flipped the ball with his glove to Ramirez who showed why he’s referred to as the Cuban Missile with a rifled throw to get Morales at first and end the inning.
3. Tulo With The Reverse Pirouette
We don’t mean to pick on Justin Upton. Honestly, his consistent victimization here on Top of the Heap is totally coincidental. He just so happens to have a larger majority than most’s batted balls turn into remarkable defensive plays. I feel silly even bringing this up seeing as how his defensive work was at the tippy top of last week’s Top of the Heap. Enough about Justin Upton though, let’s get to the man that turned two on him this week. Instead of a great catch in deep center, Upton’s nemesis this week was Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. Upton came up to the plate in the bottom of the third inning Friday evening with men on first and third and the Padres up 3-0. The Padres outfielder ripped a line shot, one of many off Jorge De La Rosa that night, thinking he would knock in at least one run. Instead, he saw Tulo range to the ball and then pull the baseball equivalent of a Swan Lake pirouette spinning in the wrong direction to get the ball to second baseman DJ LeMahieu for out number one. LeMahieu would double up Upton with a great throw to Ben Paulsen to complete yet another Upton entry on the wrong side of the Top of the Heap charts.
2. Chris Davis Feels Justin Upton’s Pain
If there is anybody in the Majors that can commiserate with Justin Upton about their place on the dark side of Top of the Heap, it is Baltimore’s Chris Davis. These pesky guys in the AL Central just won’t let the guy hit a home run. First it was Chicago’s Avisail Garcia. Last Friday it was Detroit’s J.D. Martinez. In the top of third inning, Davis caught a meatball down the heart of home plate from Anibal Sanchez. The O’s were down 3-1 at the time and had a man on first. Davis surely thought he tied the game as his blast made its way towards the right field stands. It’s flight was rudely interrupted though by Martinez’s glove who timed his jump perfectly to end the inning. He would rub salt in Baltimore’s wounds two innings later by hitting his 26th round tripper of the campaign to put the game out of reach.
1. Nolan Arenado Is Not A Human Being
To be perfectly honest, Nolan Arenado could probably be on Top of the Heap every week. He’s been on here more times than most so we shan’t bog you down with a paragraph of links. Instead, let us focus on the latest piece of mastery of the hot corner from the 24 year old Colorado dynamo. San Diego’s Austin Hedges had to be flying high coming into his seventh inning at-bat against Tommy Kahnle. The rookie backstop had homered earlier in the game and the previous batter Clint Barmes had just taken him deep for a two run shot. He got brought back down to Earth real quick. Hedges lined a ball down the third base line that in most instances would have ended up in a double. Arenado laughed mockingly at “most instances” and pulled off a Derek Jeter-esque jump throw from the general vicinity of the third base coach’s box that Ben Paulsen dug out for the out. The Rox would be second best again that night, but that play made Nolan Arenado Top of the Heap.