As Reds outfielder Stuart Fairchild approached third base to complete his fifth-inning triple against the Marlins on Tuesday, he committed a cardinal sin for baseball players: he ran through his third base coach’s stop sign.
However, thanks to Miami’s dreadful defense, he was rewarded with that rarest of MLB sequences: a Little League home run.
The Marlins opted for an inventive style of defense in trying to keep Fairchild from dashing around the horn, though it proved to be ineffective. What appeared at contact to be a bloop single turned into a triple after right fielder Jesús Sánchez took an inefficient attack angle. From there, a relay throw home that would make a tee ball coach blush finished the job and allowed Fairchild the chance to touch ’em all.
DON'T KNOW WHAT JUST HAPPENED BUT WE LOVE IT @stustuuu pic.twitter.com/3k5SvWVvYQ
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) August 9, 2023
To say that Fairchild was gifted this result would be an understatement. The ball left his bat with an exit velocity of just 75.4 miles per hour—the third-softest hit ball by a Reds batter all game—and had a mere .190 expected batting average, according to Statcast. All that data was no match for Miami’s defensive meltdown, proving once again that advanced metrics can take you only so far.
Alas, while the Marlins certainly won’t want to relive that moment any time soon, they escaped with the last laugh, eventually pulling out a 3-2 victory.
