In the third inning of Tuesday’s Atlanta Braves game against the Washington Nationals, the two teams combined for one of the strangest plays we’ve seen in a while.
It started when Washington’s Juan Soto drove a ball deep into left-center field. From there, it got crazy.
We got some afternoon #weirdbaseball.
(Also, we don’t really know what happened here. Apparently it wasn’t an out but it was an out at the same time? We just run a Twitter account. ¯_(ツ)_/¯) pic.twitter.com/Ipohymc22y
— MLB (@MLB) August 7, 2018
For any of you scoring at home, here’s what happened.
Initially, the play was ruled an 8-7 fly out. But it was later determined that before Ender Inciarte could flip the ball backwards, the ball hit the wall. So, ultimately, Adam Duvall’s impressive grab didn’t really mean that much.
Of course, Turner also thought the ball was caught. As such, he had to scamper back to first. We have to give a shoutout to him for remembering to touch second, as well. Many runners forget to do that. But since the ball had already hit the wall, he didn’t really need to do that.
But by the time Turner slid safely into first, Soto had already rounded the bag. So, Soto was determined out after he passed Turner on the bases.
Since Soto and Turner reached first and second safely (though neither knew it), Soto gets credit for a single. Soto passing the runner goes into the scorebook as a 3 unassisted.
The ball wasn’t caught, but the play ended with Soto out and Turner on first. So, from a practical purpose, it might as well have been.