The Detroit Tigers needed Javier Bez to cover 112 feet, communicate with a charging Max Clark and hold onto the baseball after crashing into the outfield wall. Their eventual 2-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers might have disappeared if any part of that sequence went wrong.
With two outs and a runner on second in the top of the ninth Saturday, Teoscar Hernndez drove a pitch from Kenley Jansen toward the deepest part of left-center field. Clark raced 122 feet from center while Bez pursued the ball from left. Neither player could afford a collision, and Bez used the hissing sound the Tigers' outfielders adopted to alert Clark that he had taken control.
Bez made a basket catch on the warning track, bounced into the fence and somehow secured his necklace after it snapped. He kept the score tied and then returned to the field minutes later to create the winning run.
The catch looked difficult without any supporting information. The Statcast measurements reported by MLB.com showed how close Hernndez came to changing the game.
His drive traveled a projected 396 feet and would have cleared the fence in 11 Major League parks, including Dodger Stadium. It carried a 37% hit probability at Comerica Park.
If Bez had arrived a fraction later, Hernndez likely would have driven home the go-ahead run and placed Los Angeles three outs from a series victory.
Clark possessed the greater straight-line speed and reached a near-elite sprint speed of 29.8 feet per second during the play. Bez had the better angle and understood that Clark started closer to the opposite gap. His early read and communication allowed Detroit to use both defenders' range without letting them run into each other.
The moment also demonstrated why Bez's move to left field mattered after Riley Greene 's hamstring injury. He had spent most of his career in the middle infield and center field, but his instincts translated to a position the Tigers needed him to learn quickly.
Bez barely had time to catch his breath before leading off the bottom of the ninth. He took two pitches from Dodgers left-hander Jack Dreyer and lined a double down the left-field line. Clark followed with a sacrifice bunt that moved him to third.
Los Angeles intentionally walked Gleyber Torres before Dreyer walked Hao-Yu Lee, loading the bases for Kevin McGonigle. The rookie sent a drive over the left-center-field wall for what the official scorer recorded as a single because Bez needed to advance only one base to score the winning run.
Bez scored both Detroit runs. He walked and came home on Torres' ground-rule double in the third before supplying the decisive run in the ninth. Reuters' game recap credited Bez and McGonigle with the defining contributions in a victory that ended the Tigers' slide of eight losses in nine games.
McGonigle produced the walk-off hit, but Bez made the ending possible twice. He saved the game with his glove and immediately placed himself in position to win it with his bat and legs.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/tigers/onsi as Tigers' Javier Bez Somehow Catches Ball Gone in 11 MLB Parks .
