It’s been a few great days for swim moves on the base paths in baseball.
On Saturday, the Rays’ Randy Arozarena avoided the tag in a rundown with a pretty fantastic move to slide safely into second base. But I think the Red Sox’s Rafael Devers just one upped him on Monday.
During the sixth inning of Boston’s game against the Minnesota Twins at Fenway Park, Devers tried to advance to third off a double from Xander Bogaerts. And while the throw into Twins third baseman Gio Urshela was a bit up the line, Devers couldn’t stop his momentum and slid off third base entirely.
He was seemingly toast. But in a brilliant combination of chaos and skill (and magic, probably), Devers was able to elude Urshela’s glove and reach into third safely. We probably won’t see a better move than this all season:
Rafael Devers with an entry for Slide of the Year pic.twitter.com/yzKDmDNEN0
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) April 18, 2022
And another look:
This Devers slide is Pure Chaos pic.twitter.com/sNV8JArTzX
— Alex Fast (@AlexFast8) April 18, 2022
Just unreal. What a slide. It shouldn’t have been possible for Urshela to miss the tag so many times, but you have to give Devers credit there.
MLB fans were understandably in awe because that was too much fun.