Washington, D.C. — The catch got all the attention, and rightly so. The play Nationals centerfielder Jacob Young made to take a home run away from Riley Greene in the ninth inning of Game 2 Wednesday night was unbelievable.
“Yeah, I didn’t watch the replay and I’m not going to,” Greene said. “It was an incredible catch. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The catch, though, overshadowed an incredible at-bat by Greene. He’d hit two homers in Game 1 and found out between games that he would be the starting left fielder for the American League in the All-Star Game on Tuesday in Atlanta.
He was given a rare start off in Game 2 against Nats’ lefty MacKenzie Gore. But, as usual, he found a way to impact the game off the bench.
The Tigers trailed 3-2 in the seventh inning. With one on and one out, and right-handed reliever Brad Lord pitching, manager AJ Hinch sent Greene up to pinch-hit for Justyn-Henry Malloy.
The move led Nationals manager Dave Martinez to bring in fire-balling lefty Jose A. Ferrer, which Hinch anticipated.
“First of all, I will take Greeney against anybody,” Hinch said. “Second, if he does retire him, barring a double-play ball, then Gleyber has a shot and Jahmai has a shot.”
That’s what happened. Greene punched out but Gleyber Torres singled and Jahmai Jones ripped a two-run double to the left-center gap, giving the Tigers a brief 4-3 lead.
But back to Greene’s fierce at-bat and Young’s ridiculous catch.
The Nationals blew the game open in the eighth, scoring five of their six runs against Tommy Kahnle. But Greene came up again in the ninth inning and, never mind the lopsided score, put up a 10-pitch battle against reliever Kyle Finnegan.
“He’s a great example of being all in all the time,” Hinch said. “The other part of it, he gets a free look at their closer. I don’t know if he comes in today or not, but at the very least, Riley got a chance to have an at-bat against a high-end guy that could potentially be of value to us today.
“He will give nothing away ever, whether we are way ahead or way behind and that’s very symbolic of the type of guys we have on this team.”
Greene fouled off four straight 2-2 pitches, two splitters and two four-seamers, and then took a splitter that was just off the plate. He sent the 10th pitch, a 96-mph four-seamer, 388 feet to left-center.
Young, who played travel ball with Greene as teenagers in the Orlando area, scaled the wall, Spiderman style, braced himself against the wall with his right arm, reached his glove over the wall and somehow secured the catch.
“I think ever since you were five years old, you’ve scaled the wall to try to do cool things,” Young told MLB.com and other Nationals reporters. “But it’s very hard to keep your eye on the ball as you’re scaling the wall trying to figure it out. So just practicing taking your eye off the ball and picking it back up, stuff like that.
“Then it kind of all incorporates to one big play at one time — a lot of little things kind of lead up to that one big play.”
Young almost overreached for it.
“I thought it was going to keep on carrying,” he said. “I think it kind of died as it got closer to the wall. As I got up to the wall, I noticed that it wasn’t as high as I thought. So it was just like adjusting your glove down to almost side-catch it more than anything.”
The at-bat was impressive. The catch was better.
“I saw one of the most acrobatic catches that I have ever seen, scaling the wall and getting up top,” Hinch said. “Thankfully it wasn’t in a one-run game. That was an incredible catch.”
Outs at home
When Matt Vierling was thrown out at home to end the sixth inning, trying to score from first on a double by Colt Keith, it was the 13th time a Tiger has been thrown out at the plate.
That’s the fourth most in the big leagues.
The Tigers also lead baseball with a 54% success rate on extra bases taken.
According to Hinch, the good trumps the bad in that category.
“We are going to make other teams make plays,” he said. “We’ve seen it work out a ton of times and that’s because we are fearless with how we go about it. But it’s not careless. We’ve studied it. We’ve watched it and (third base coach) Joey Cora is aggressive.
“We get so many benefits that we don’t talk about on these close plays because of that. That’s why I don’t mind when we’re over aggressive and they end up making a play. We will move on to the next play.”
The next play on Wednesday came in the very next inning when Cora aggressively sent Torres home from first on a double by Jones and he barely beat the hurried throw.
“You can’t play this game careful,” Hinch said. “You end up in bad spots if you go base to base.”
Bailey Horn stays
The Tigers officially called up lefty Bailey Horn from Triple-A Toledo Thursday. He’d been up as the 27th man for the doubleheader Wednesday and got an extended stay.
Right-hander Tyler Owens was optioned back to Toledo.
“He’s done a good job of throwing strikes and being competitive,” Hinch said.
Horn pitched in one game with the Tigers earlier this season and after spending three weeks on the injured list with a small fracture in his left elbow, has allowed one run in 5.2 innings with Toledo, with seven strikeouts and three walks.
Hinch said the upcoming opponents pushed the need to add another lefty to the bullpen.
“If you think about the top of the Nats’ order (as many as four lefties, starting with CJ Abrams and James Wood),” he said. “If you think about going into Cleveland with as platoon-heavy as they are. Even Tampa, as left-handed as they are – it’s a good stretch for us to have three lefties.”
Horn might be the only available lefty for Thursday. Tyler Holton pitched two innings and Brant Hurter threw 53 pitches in Game 1 Wednesday.
“But he’s earned it by being in the strike zone,” Hinch said. “If he was spraying the ball too much and wasn’t challenging the competition, he still wouldn’t be here.”
Kahnle needs work
There was nothing physically wrong with Tommy Kahnle Wednesday night.
“I was fine,” he said. “Nothing happened.”
Something happened. He got uncharacteristically tagged for five runs without recording an out. But that was an execution issue, not a health issue.
“I just didn’t have good command with it (his changeup),” he said. “I really haven’t for the last few outings, to be honest. It’s been a battle.”
He allowed a run with nine strikeouts and three walks in 10 appearances from May 26 through June 22. But he’s made only three appearances since then and he’s fought to get ahead of hitters (32 strikes and 23 balls in his last 55 pitches).
Asked what generally helps get him through these stretches, Kahnle said, “Just getting out there more would help. I went through a spell where I didn’t throw as much and I lost it a little bit.”
Olson time
Right hander Reese Olson caught an early flight to Cleveland Thursday ahead of his teammates to prepare for what will likely be his first start since May 18.
“With where our rotation is at, it’s important,” said Hinch, who said the move won’t be official until before the game Friday. “He’s really good. He’s one of the more underrated guys that we’ve lost. He doesn’t get a lot of attention, but we love it when he pitches.”
The Tigers finished the series in Washington with eight relievers and one extra position player. It’s possible that a position player gets optioned back to make room for Olson.
@cmccosky