The Brewers scored on a 54-foot popup that was too short to count as a sacrifice fly
As he watched the Washington Nationals track a ball off his bat, Brewers catcher Omar Navarez must have felt as if he’d failed to bring home teammate Kolten Wong from third base.
Navarez had popped up in the fifth inning of Saturday’s game. The ball was coming down in front of the Brewers’ dugout, which shouldn’t have been a signal to Wong that he could tag up and score.
But Wong noticed that none of the Nationals had bothered to hang around home plate.
Nationals catcher Tres Barrera had gone in pursuit of the ball, but first baseman Ryan Zimmerman caught it. For some reason, pitcher Gabe Klobosits ran to the area where the catch was made, too.
So Wong tagged and used a great slide to beat Zimmerman’s tag to tie the game 3-3.
As a Brewers announcer noted: “I’ve never seen that before. Never in my life have I seen that before.”
Statcast showed the bat off the ball traveled all of 54 feet.
Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported the official scorer couldn’t rule it a sacrifice fly because the ball was only hit on the infield.
“We’ve got to get somebody back,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez sagely noted, per MLB.com. “Once they see Zim going to catch the ball, for me, the pitcher goes to cover home. You can’t have (third baseman) Carter (Kieboom) cover because there is a guy on second base, so he’s got to stay put. But the pitcher’s got to get to home.”
