ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2013 They felt like home runs off the bat. They looked like homers as they headed to the right-field fence.<\/p>\n
They weren\u2019t home runs because of the ridiculous athleticism, effort and execution of Angels right fielder Jo Adell.<\/p>\n
The organization\u2019s former top prospect, who turns 27 next week, was known for his power-hitting potential.<\/p>\n
But on Saturday night at Angels Stadium, he glove-handedly destroyed the Mariners victory hopes, helping hold Seattle scoreless on the night with three homer-robbing catches and leading the Angels to a 1-0 victory.<\/p>\n
Some outfielders can play an entire career and maybe rob one home run. Adell did it to Cal Raleigh in the first inning. He stole one from Josh Naylor in the eighth inning. But it was his catch in the ninth, saving the best for last, that could be the best of the season given the difficulty and the circumstances.<\/p>\n
With the Mariners trailing 1-0 in the top of the ninth, J.P. Crawford hammered a high fly ball to the right-field corner. The fence in that area is only about 4-feet high. Given how hard he hit, it seemed like Crawford had tied the game. He jogged down the line watching it go out.<\/p>\n
The ball did go over the fence, but its path was interrupted by Adell\u2019s glove. Running at full sprint, Adell leaped toward the fence, knowing he would likely go over and into the crowd. Safety be damned, he caught the ball mid flight and tumbled into the stands.<\/p>\n
The Mariners asked for a replay review, hoping the ball might have gone out. It didn\u2019t. As the umpires in New York watched replays, the Angels video screen replayed multiple angles of the catch in slow motion, each one seemingly making it more impressive.<\/p>\n
The Mariners wasted another outstanding start from Emerson Hancock. The right-hander tossed 6 2\/3 innings allowing one run on six hits with no walks and five strikeouts.<\/p>\n
The one run allowed came immediately in what was a hectic first inning for Hancock. The fourth pitch of his outing \u2013 a 96-mph fastball on 2-1 count \u2013 was turned into a leadoff homer by Zach Neto.<\/p>\n
It looked like the Angels might tack on more when Nolan Schanuel doubled to left-center and Jorge Soler snuck a single through the right side to put runners on the corners with one out. But Hancock came back to strike out Yoan Moncada for the second out of the inning.<\/p>\n
The third out, well, that was a little unusual. Facing the right-handed hitting Adell, Hancock uncorked a wayward sweeper into the other batter\u2019s box. Raleigh couldn\u2019t glove it. The ball ricocheted off the back stop and started rolling back as a hustling Raleigh slid on his knees to grab it, spun and fired back toward home plate as he fell toward the ground. The throw was perfect. It hit Hancock\u2019s glove right in front of the plate for an easy tag on Schanuel to end the inning.<\/p>\n
Given a chance to relax and reset after the wild top of the first, Hancock settled in, worked the next 5 2\/3 inning scoreless before giving way to Eduard Bazardo.<\/p>\n
Donovan \u2018day to day\u2019 with groin injury<\/p>\n
Brendan Donovan knows he\u2019s supposed to run through first base and not leap or lunge for it.<\/p>\n
He knows that not changing his stride and continuing to run is faster than making a long one-footed leap or lunge. It\u2019s also much safer in terms of injury.<\/p>\n
And yet \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI know,\u201d he said with a sheepish smile. \u201cBut I really wanted to get that hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the seventh inning of a tied game on Friday, Brendan Donovan was trying hard to get a rally started. He hit a hard ground ball just to the right of the second-base bag. It looked like it was a hit off the bat. But Oswald Peraza made a nice sliding backhand attempt to knock the ball down, scrambled to his feet and fired to first.<\/p>\n
Seeing it was going to be close, Donovan made a long leap toward the bag, landing awkwardly on his left leg and then using his right leg as a brace to stop him from falling forward and landing on his face.<\/p>\n
And while it looked like the left leg would be the issue, he felt a shooting pain up through the inside of his right leg, through the groin and into his hip.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a little painful,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019ve kind of got to manage it.\u201d<\/p>\n
After consulting with trainers, Brendan Donovan was removed from Friday\u2019s game for precautionary reasons. Donovan suffered a groin strain late last season that forced him to the 10-day injured list on Aug. 18. He returned to the Cardinals lineup on Sept. 12, but a general discomfort still persisted. He underwent surgery to repair a sports hernia on Oct. 7.<\/p>\n
The Mariners medical staff wanted to make sure he didn\u2019t do anything to harm the surgically repaired area. He underwent an MRI on Saturday morning. The results came back clean, providing some relief for Donovan and the organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2013 They felt like home runs off the bat. They looked like homers as they headed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,620,4,619,65,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-664298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mariners","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-mariners","13":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116351193437083903","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}