If you played baseball as a kid, odds are you had a coach who instructed you to always know what to do if the ball gets hit to you in a given situation. After all, we’re talking about a split-second decision, so you always have to be aware of the situation.
Well, Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner gets an A+ in situational awareness after Sunday’s eighth-inning double play against the Milwaukee Brewers.
With Avisail Garcia at the plate and a runner on first, Hoerner camped under a routine pop-up to second as if he was going to make the easy catch. Knowing that no infield fly rule was in effect with just one runner on, Hoerner deked the catch attempt and did this instead:
This is brilliant.
— The Baseball Newsletter (@bbletter) April 25, 2021
I mean, it doesn’t get much more heads up than that.
Hoerner let the ball hit the ground — seeing that Garcia wasn’t running hard — and made the throw to first for the out. This put Omar Narvaez in an impossible spot because he had to stay close to first in case Hoerner made the catch, and when the baseball dropped, he had to try to advance (and would get caught in a rundown).
It all resulted in the not-so-conventional double play. Hoerner’s awareness made it possible.
