The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

Ok so I've got access to ESPN and ESPN America over here until the end of the month and found myself watching baseball, I'm getting the hang of the rules, but can someone please explain how what Bruntlett did was a "Triple Play"?

Sure... The situation was zero outs, runners at first base (Murphy) and at second base (Castillo). New York sets up a hit and run, which means both runners are going as soon as the pitcher turns to deliver the pitch to the plate. The batter, Francoeur, hits a line drive up the middle, which Bruntlett catches...and Francoeur is out (1 down). Bruntlett tags second base, which gets Castillo out, as he left before the line drive was caught. Then Bruntlett tagged Murphy, who was just coming into second base for the 3rd out.

Ah cheers for that, it was the guy who left the base which was confusing me!

We were watching this game, and even my wife was shocked that he turned this unassisted triple play.

Just to give you some perspective , here's some stats- (as you may have heard on ESPN)- There have only been 15 unassisted triple plays in MLB history. This was only the second time a game has ended on one.  The first time was a game in 1927! That was by the Detroit Tigers,  so this was the first time a NL game has ended on one.

In one of those "weird twist of the world" type situations, Bruntlett started off the ninth inning with an error, and another botched play, which pretty much led to Castillo and Murphy being on base in the first place. (he himself even blamed himself for the runners on base)
Bruntlett also has said he was perfectly placed to make the catch and tag the bag because the runners had already started running. Had they not started running, he would've never been in position to make the catch.

I've only seen this once before in my life - and it was like 10 or 15 years ago.  I think it was a Twins' 2nd baseman or something.  A very similar situation...

my favorite play in all of baseball (second is the strike-em out, throw-em out inning ending DP)

about as rare as pitching a perfect game.

very cool when a something like an unassisted triple play happens.  my favorite is still when they steal home though.

I think the coolest thing about this story is that the first triple play to end a game was made in 1927 by a first baseman, which means he would have had to have caught a line shot, stepped on the bag to get the guy going from first to second, and then run to second base to step on second or tag the guy  going from second to third before he got back to second.  Could it have been any other way?

That seems like a pretty awesome play.

Its possible they had some sort of weird shift on for the batter, or he called a pop-up which drifted over towards second base.

That's a possibility, but more likely is that the first baseman left the bag to catch the line drive (which was towards 2nd base.)  Then, he tagged the runner trying to get back, and already had momentum towards 2nd to make the out.

The runner on 2nd (going to third) was probably 3/4 of the way to 3rd before he had to turn around.