Diving for a base isn’t always best career move
• If Mike Trout has ever been concerned about his safety when stealing a base, it hasn’t held him back.
For the American League MVP and many of baseball’s best baserunners, it might not matter anyway. In those split seconds after ball beats runner to the bag, decisions aren’t made with much calculation. If they see a way to the base, they’ll contort their body any which way to try to get there.
“When you l ook down there, you see the throw is going to beat you, you have to do something to try to escape,” the Los Angeles Angels star said last week.
Sometimes the result is a sweet, highlight-worthy slide. But as Trout experienced over the weekend, there’s a risk to letting instinct take hold in those spots. He tore a ligament in his left thumb diving into second base in Miami Sunday.
Trout is having surgery to repair the thumb, which put him on the disabled list for the first time in his career despite years of brazen, crowdpleasing evasions of infield- er’s tags.
Sometimes a player just can’t help himself, like when Blue Jays baserunner Chris Coghlan went soaring over catcher Yadier Molina on a play at the plate in late April.
Concern for injury? Not exactly. No time, really.
“I was thinking, ‘Since he’s down, why don’t you jump?”’ Coghlan recalled.
It’s not a play Coghlan has ever practised, and not one he’s sure he could replicate. It only worked because his legs bounced off Molina’s back as the catcher stood, generating enough momentum for Coghlan to finish his flip.
Would he risk his body like that again? It probably won’t ever come up.
“You probably don’t see that for 100 years,” said John Gibbons, his manager.