Yoenis Cespedes is a pretty good baseball player. We know this. But he’s not perfect, and he almost made an extremely costly error in the 8th inning of a 1-1 game between the A’s and Angels last night. Almost…but then something amazing happened that made us forget about that dumb mistake.
With Howie Kendrick on first and one out in the eighth, Mike Trout smacked a base hit to left field, where Cespedes failed to field it cleanly. It should have been a simple play, but the ball bounced off the Oakland outfielder’s glove and rolled to the wall just beside the foul line.
As Cespedes casually strolled to pick up the ball, the Angels waved Kendrick around third and sent him home for what would have been the go-ahead run late in the game. It looked like he was going to be safe, at least until Cespedes unleashed an absolute CANNON to the plate right on the money and cut down Kendrick in epic fashion.
All of the Angels fans in attendance were absolutely shocked – as was A’s reliever Luke Gregerson, who can be seen muttering “that was unbelievable” to his catcher following the play – as they should have been. It was an absolutely absurd throw. You can certainly expect this one to be in the running for best defensive highlight of 2014.
Not a bad way to make up for a boneheaded mistake, huh?
[More GIFs of the ridiculous throw HERE]
