St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina is a surefire Hall of Famer for a number of reasons. Besides being the best defensive catcher in the history of baseball, Molina takes every game seriously — even in spring training.
We saw that in action during Sunday’s Grapefruit League game against the Houston Astros.
Molina was still in the game in the seventh inning, which is typically around the time you’d see a bunch of guys with numbers in the 90s who have no shot at making the opening-day squad. But Molina was still in there, and he noticed that Astros pinch runner Jose Siri was looking aggressive off first base.
So, what did Molina do? He straight-up challenged Siri to steal second … and threw him out anyway. Jomboy Media broke down the exchange brilliantly.
Yadier Molina tells runner to steal then throws him out, a breakdown pic.twitter.com/q8Ly2mMXdK
— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) March 7, 2021
The best part of the whole play had to be the pronounced staredown from Molina after he threw Siri out to end the inning.
Like, it was the seventh inning of an early March spring training game! And Molina still wasn’t going to dial down the intensity at all.
It doesn’t get much better than that.
