Why Mets catcher ran toward mound in middle of Craig Kimbrel-Shohei Ohtani showdown vs. Dodgers
Why Mets catcher ran toward mound in middle of Craig Kimbrel-Shohei Ohtani showdown vs. Dodgers originally appeared on The Sporting News . Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here .
They'll go down as a couple of the oddest seconds on an MLB field this season.
There was New York Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez sprinting partway to the pitcher's mound in the middle of an at bat between reliever Craig Kimbrel and Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani .
Ohtani and the home plate umpire both scramble out of the way behind Alvarez.
Kimbrel, after not noticing at first, eventually holds onto the baseball rather than throw home.
Here's the clip:
It's definitely not something you see every day.
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Why did Francisco Alvarez run toward the mound?
Alvarez was trying to get Kimbrel's attention.
The catcher called time, but he realized that the legendary reliever wasn't looking at home plate when that happened. Alvarez sensed, seemingly rightly, that Kimbrel was still going to throw a pitch.
And because Alvarez knew that his timeout call would potentially cause movements for Ohtani or the umpire around him, he wanted to make sure a baseball wasn't flung toward home plate that didn't count.
It was all made more dramatic by the fact that it took Kimbrel so long to see him, which almost called on Alvarez to do even more movement than he would've otherwise.
In the end, all's well that ends well. But it was quite the brief scene.
