The Blue Jays whipped the Athletics on Saturday (TOR 10, OAK 1) for their third straight win. Central to those efforts was veteran shortstop Freddy Galvis. Galvis went 2 for 5 at the plate and is now batting .310/.333/.536 (132 OPS+) in this, his age-29 season.
After the eighth inning on Saturday, though, people were no longer talking about his surprising production at the plate. They were talking about this play, which came at the expense of Josh Phegley:
The bat traveled 211 feet of Phegley's bat, so Galvis had to range well into the outfield to make that miracle snare. As you can see, it was also a bright and sunny day in the Bay Area -- a "high sky" as Toronto manager Charlie Montoyo put it -- which complicated matters for Galvis. This, of course, is on top of the inherent difficulties in making a bare-hand, over-the-shoulder catch. Watch closely and you can see Galvis start to reach across his body with his glove and then decide better of it at the last instant. Chef kisses all around.
Naturally, it called to mind Kevin Mitchell's catch from way back yonder in 1989:
Personally, I'll take Galvis' catch since Mitchell's -- miraculous as it was -- was a function of his taking a less than ideal lateral route toward the ball. Sure, you can also say Galvis' route wasn't perfect, but, again, he was in pursuit with his back to the plate, which makes things much more difficult.
We'd be talking about Galvis' as a nifty play even if, in keeping with industry-wide best practices, he made it with his glove. That he made the catch with his bare hand means it's the early frontrunner for play of the year.
