Ooh boy, this was a bumper week for GIFs. Much like London buses, general elections and Toronto Blue Jays victories you wait all year for one and then several appear at once.
Amid the cacophony of brilliance we were treated to last week, some strong GIFs have failed to make the cut as stronger competition forced them out, including Aaron Judge hitting home runs into the Atlantic Ocean and the Dodgers going back-to-back-to-back to tie the game in the ninth inning.
Enough about the GIFs that couldn’t make it however, and on with the ones that could.
5. Eugenio Suarez has his daydream rudely interrupted
Who knows what poor Eugenio was thinking about as he rounded third. He could have been weighing up his options for dinner. He could have been thinking of a good way to break the ice with third baseman Jedd Gyorko. He could, even, have been weighing up the age old question of whether a hot dog is a sandwich.
In the end, it matters nowt. Yadier Molina, being a ruthless and highly skilled sniper behind the plate interrupts his train of thought abruptly with a moment of nonchalance brilliance. Suarez returns to the bench. “It’s not a bloody sandwich”, he thinks. “It just isn’t”.
4. Chris Coghlan scores a perfect 10
You can guarantee we’ll have our fair share of crafty slides gracing these articles before the end of the year, but we may never quite see a slide like this one again.
It’s a remarkable dive, a baffling feat of athleticism made all the more impressive by the fact Coghlan had a split second to make the decision to throw himself towards the plate, as Molina barrelled into his way to field the ball.
The dive in, and of, itself would be enough to make this clip extraordinary but the graceful, mesmeric forward roll on landing elevates this to art. Chapeau Monsieur Coghlan, chapeau.
3. Mike Morse goes all 2014 NLCS on us
Here at B&N, we quite enjoy watching players have fun and Mike Morse has a lot of fun on the baseball field. From giving the Giants bats a stern talking to, to dramatic late home runs, to the remarkable story of his return to the sport this year, Morse plays baseball with a joie de vivre that could inspire us all.
This home run may not have had the crucial implications of his 2014 NLCS shot, but it had a fair few similarities including Morse’s jubilant celebrations as he rounds the bases, blissfully, if only momentarily, unaware of both his own mortality and the fact that the Giants bullpen will almost certainly blow the game an inning later.
(I kid, I kid, the Giants actually went on to win this game, moving into sole possession of fourth place in the NL West).
2. Kendall Graveman does something pretty rare
If an unassisted double play by the pitcher sounds rare, that is because it is. The last A’s pitcher to achieve the feat was a gentleman named Blue Moon Odom in 1971.
Blue Moon probably deserves a post of his own (he ran a negative K-BB% in nine of 13 MLB seasons) but let’s stick with Graveman, who performed a similarly impressive feat earlier this season when he took a no hitter into the 7th inning against the Rangers whilst literally only throwing sinkers.
The man Graveman chases down in this clip is the distinctly un-lead-footed Ben Revere before he acrobatically hurdles the runner to tag Pennington too. Historic and cool. That works.
1. Anthony Rendon does something even rarer
6-for-6, 3 HR, 10 RBI. First 10 RBI game since 2007. Only Walker Cooper, of the 1949 Reds, has repeated that combination of hits, homers and RBI since 1913!
He increased his season line from .226/.316/.250 to .278/.356/.411. He increased his WRC+ from 59 to 107. He increased his career slugging percentage – his career slugging percentage – from .425 to .432.
That home run off poor Kevin Plawecki did feel like salt in the gaping, festering wound that is the New York Mets though.