Article: Unique Opportunity, Perfect Execution: Cubs Win On Rare Relay to Home Plate

[Matthew Trueblood]

After the offense had to scratch and claw to score a lone run in nine innings against the Mets Wednesday night, it fell to the Chicago Cubs' defense to save a narrow win. They rose to the challenge nicely.

Image courtesy of © Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Some fans will quibble with Craig Counsell's choice to remove Shota Imanaga after seven innings of work Wednesday night. There were good reasons for his decision, though, and really, the ensuing stress over the final six outs of the game was the fault of the sputtering, injury-depleted offense, not of Counsell, Imanaga, or anyone else. Because the team was only able to nudge across one meager run, there was no margin for error for any Chicago hurler.

Héctor Neris is not in a place right now where he can pitch effectively without any margin for error. When he took over with the top of the Mets' lineup due in the bottom of the ninth, it felt nothing like a sure thing that the Cubs would survive and ensure at least a split in their series in Flushing. After he hit Pete Alonso with a pitch and allowed a double to J.D. Martinez to put the tying run 90 feet away, things looked bleak.

Then, in a blaze of heroism that is becoming intimately familiar for Cubs fans, Ian Happ, Nick Madrigal, and Miguel Amaya saved the day. With one out, Jeff McNeil hit a high fly ball down the left-field line, and Alonso tried to tie the game by racing home.

This double play ends the game and the @Cubs hang on for the 1-0 win! pic.twitter.com/Kv6Wa88Tu3

— MLB (@MLB) May 2, 2024

That's baseball at its very best. The game itself is never better than when a team executes a great relay, whether they get the runner or not. In this case, there was extra beauty in it, not only because of the high stakes and the closeness of the play, but because this play was quite original, too.

When most Cubs fans saw this play, they probably flashed back to last summer, when Happ threw out two Brewers runners at home plate to (first) preserve an extra-inning tie and (one inning later) lock up the win for the Cubs on the 4th of July.

As a baseball history geek, when I saw the ball leading Happ toward the line as much as it did, I thought of the most iconic such play of the last half-century: the fly ball on which George Foster threw out a would-be winning run in the legendary Game 6 of the 1975 World Series.

Realistically, though, McNeil's fly ball posed a different, greater challenge to the Cubs than those plays. Statcast estimates the distance of the fly ball on which Happ killed the tying run against the Brewers last July at 242 feet. We don't have such fancy tools for Foster's great play, but it's in the same neighborhood. It might even have been less than that. McNeil's would-be sacrifice fly went an estimated 272 feet, and Happ had to go far enough to get it that he also couldn't load up behind the ball the way he did for the throw above.

There were two things he had going for him, in opposition to the distance and the inability to get off his strongest possible throw. One is that Alonso was running. Alonso is big and slow. The other thing is Madrigal.

It's hard to overstate how impressive a play Madrigal made to get this out. Firstly, he's not a native to third base, and although he's proved himself an elite defender at that position already and taken ample reps out there, he's objectively less versed in the nuances of that kind of play than an average third baseman.

Second, to the extent that players practice this kind of throw, the responsibility of an infielder making the cut is nearly always to redirect the ball to trap a trailing runner, or to remove the risk of the throw getting away. True relays to nail runners on potential sacrifice flies are exceedingly rare. The relays on which an infielder makes the cut and then tries to throw out the lead runner nearly always come on long hits into the corners or the gaps. That means more time to set up for the throw from the outfielder, and more time to make sure of one's angle to home plate. Madrigal found himself taking a throw in a whole different rhythm than is typical for a third baseman executing a relay.

How rare are such plays? Since 2015, there's only been one other double play (a catch in the air and then a kill of the advancing runner, rather than a relay on a hit or error) on which an infielder made a simple cut and throw through to the catcher, rather than a throw behind the runner or some other effort to create a rundown. Here it is:

This play comes from April 2018, and it bears some significant differences from Happ's and Madrigal's. The ball Andrew McCutchen hit was a liner that caught everyone a little bit flat-footed. Christian Villanueva did well to collect and fire the ball, but it was a weird play. This wasn't that kind of situation. It's truly unique, in the last decade.

I found evidence (but not video) of similar plays by Dustin Pedroia in 2014 and James Loney in 2011, but within the last 20 years, that's about it. It's extremely rare for an infielder to make a relay and successfully oust a runner for a fly-ball double play.

That brings us to the next point: Happ's throw was wonderfully accurate, and so was Madrigal's. The latter created a little space between himself and the baseline, anticipating Happ's throw and making sure Dansby Swanson didn't block his sightlines. Thus, Madrigal caught the ball in a perfect throwing position, and he was lightning-quick with his exchange and release. Finally, he delivered a perfect peg of his own.

With Amaya slightly favoring fair territory to accommodate Alonso's slide, Madrigal's throw was perfect. It took him into Alonso's path and led him right down to the sliding runner. Amaya made a great catch and a quick tag, to complete the burst of baseball genius and eke out a victory. In very little time and with no chance of getting Alonso unless all three were perfect, these three threaded the needle.

The Cubs won yet another game they had no business winning, and Madrigal, especially, deserves credit for making that possible. While he's overextended in almost any full-time role, he remains an indispensable asset defensively. The quickness, fluidity, and precision of his actions on the double play were worth perhaps 20 percent of a win by themselves Wednesday. That was a thrilling way to end a game; the Cubs keep finding good ones.

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[CubinNY]

Excellent work. This could go in any newspaper in the country. 

[BigbadB]

I was immediately curious how many times guys have been cut down with relay throws when tagging up at 3rd. I can't recall ever actually seeing it before where it happened like it did last night. I can imagine one where a runner had to come back to tag up late thinking a ball wasn't going to be caught and being slow on getting back to the bag to tag, but one where the runner was going on the catch is one I had not witnessed before. It was perfectly executed. 

[UMFan83]

Just want to say that this is fantastic day after content.  Thank you for writing it!