Let the debate begin.
Who made the better catch in the Atlanta Braves’ 3-0 win over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 2 of the NLDS?
Was it Atlanta shortstop Dansby Swanson, who sprinted with his back to the infield to snare a popup in short left-center field off the bat of J.T. Realmuto in the sixth inning?
Or was it third baseman Austin Riley, who angled himself in foul territory, bouncing off the tarp to catch a Bryson Stott popup in the eighth?
“I give him the credit just because running straight out, over the head is pretty tough,” Riley said after the game.
Swanson disagreed: “I’ll say his was better. I didn’t have to dodge a tarp. The guy, once again, a very under-appreciated defender, a lot more athletic than people give him credit for. The guy’s a gamer.”
We’ll have to go to a teammate to get an unbiased opinion.
“They were pretty similar,” first baseman Matt Olson said. “Couple of crazy catches. Dansby going back, I think [left fielder Eddie] Rosario was going to have the play at it first. Rosario was pretty deep.
“[Swanson] had to readjust, get back on it and make an over the shoulder catch. And then Riley going up against the tarp. Weird angle. Couple of great catches, and that’s the kind of game it was tonight.”
Perhaps Riley gets the edge because Swanson claims he has had plenty of practice with over-the-shoulder catches.
“I should get my parents in here because they threw me a gajillion balls just like that all the time growing up over my head,” he said. “I was the epitome of the kid that would throw a tennis ball off a wall and ricochet it and run, try to catch it over my shoulder. Probably threw a lot of tennis balls onto the field, too, to disrupt my brother’s baseball games. But I feel like I’ve been doing that since I was 5.”
One person was happier than most with the two plays: Starter Kyle Wright. He was on the mound for the first one, while the second one helped preserve the win.
“For me, that’s my best friend is a good defense,” Wright said. “I try to get guys to put it on the ground. When they make catches like that, that’s good, too. That’s been one of my biggest weapons this year, I believe, is the defense.”
In the end, they were both great plays, part of a stellar game by the home team as they tied the series, 1-1.
“I was trying to throw a flag on myself because I feel like I made it look way harder than it needed to be,” Swanson said. “I was running out there, and I felt like, maybe because it was a breaking ball, it kind of like kept spinning away from me.
“And I slowed down just enough to check Rosario to see where he was so that we didn’t have a collision. And once he just kind of looked at me, like, ‘Hey, brother, it’s yours or nobody’s,’ I just went for it.”
Source: www.espn.com