Judging homer-saving grabs by Starling Marte and Billy Hamilton
We wouldn’t exactly call either catch a thing of beauty. Both men could use some work on their timing, but that’s to be expected in April. It’s still early yet, and players are still getting reacquainted to their surroundings.
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Besides that, the results are all that really matter. Both players caught the ball and kept their pitchers ERA down. So we applaud them for that.
But hey, we’re not afraid to judge them either. So let’s take a look at both and see what we come up with. First up, here’s Starling Marte.
First of all, Marte is a defending Gold Glove winner, so he’s earned some leeway. He’s also the owner of baseball’s calmest outfield assist on record, so he certainly has his own methods that work for him. With that in mind, and with the Pirates already trailing the Brewers by five runs at this point in the game, perhaps we can then speculate that he was simply looking to amuse himself by raising the degree of difficulty.
It’s possible. Though it’s also possible he made a bad read either on the baseball off Chris Carter’s bat or on his whereabouts on the field. The latter of which would be highly surprising since PNC Park is his home park.
Again, he made the catch, and that’s what counts. But it didn’t really matter in the end anyway. The Brewers went on to win the game 8-4.
Starling Marte’s score: 6.5 (on a scale of Mike Trout’s rookie-year grab in Baltimore)
The St. Louis Cardinals smacked six home runs in their 14-3 drubbing of the Reds. Hamilton personally saw to it that it wouldn’t be seven homers, and we tip our caps to that effort.
Hamilton came into professional baseball as a shortstop, and has since transitioned to center field. He’s not what you’d consider Gold Glove caliber out there, or at least not consistently so, but he can make up for that with pure, raw speed.
Here, he used some speed and some hops to climb the wall at Busch Stadium and steal a homer from Matt Carpenter.
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Again, it was not exactly smooth, nor was it a thing of beauty straight from the Mike Trout or Kevin Pillar playbooks. It was effective though, and for that we award you, Billy Hamilton.
Billy Hamilton’s rating: 7.5
And there you have it. To the victor goes nothing other than his own gratification and hopefully a free dinner from his pitcher. The latter being far more important than the former.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
