“I feel like pitchers don’t necessarily get to catch those very often. You always get called off,” Bibee said. “I feel like whenever the ball goes up like that, my mindset is always to catch the ball. No one called me off, and I got to catch it. It was cool.”
He wasn’t the only pitcher to grab a popup in this game. In the fourth inning, Royals starter Michael Wacha caught one off the bat of Cleveland’s José Ramírez, who appeared in his franchise-record 1,620th career game played. With no disrespect to Bibee, Wacha’s catch was certainly the more impressive of the two, considering he had to run into foul territory along the third-base line to catch it.