Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Bryan Reynolds delivered the third inside-the-park home run of the Major League Baseball season on Saturday night against the St. Louis Cardinals. Reynolds' knock, which came with a runner on first base and with two outs in the fifth inning, reduced the Cardinals' lead to 5-4 (GameTracker).
Reynolds yanked a hanging breaking ball from Matthew Liberatore, making his big-league debut, deep to left field. The ball ricocheted sharply off the top of the wall, evading left fielder Corey Dickerson and rolling on the warning track toward the center-field area. The ball rolled so far that Dickerson was not the fielder who picked up the ball; rather, that was center fielder Tommy Edman.
Reynolds was nearing third base by the time Edman threw the ball toward the infield, and subsequently crossed the plate standing up and without a throw. Here's a look at that scene as it played out in moving pictures:
In a coincidence, the other two inside-the-parkers this season were also hit by outfielders. Travis Demeritte of the Atlanta Braves notched one on April 29 against the Texas Rangers. Harrison Bader, who would normally have recovered Reynolds' batted ball as the Cardinals' regular center fielder, hit his own versus the Baltimore Orioles on May 10.
Reynolds entered Saturday night hitting .223/.318/.354 (96 OPS+) with four home runs and four additional extra-base knocks in 148 plate appearances. Reynolds made his first career All-Star Game last season, and he later finished 11th in National League Most Valuable Player voting by batting .302/.390/.522 (147 OPS+) with 24 home runs in 646 trips to the plate.
Reynolds originally joined the Pirates as a part of the January 2018 trade that sent franchise icon Andrew McCutchen to the San Francisco Giants. (Reliever Kyle Crick also went to Pittsburgh in that deal, though he's since moved on to the Chicago White Sox organization.)
