Tag: Adam Duvall

Adam Duvall amazingly tossed a baseball through a beer cup pyramid and made it look so easy

He made that look TOO easy.

At times, it’s easy to take for granted — or even overlook — just how otherworldly MLB players are at baseball. But every player on the field is literally among the best 945 people on the planet at the sport. The skill is undeniable.

Braves outfielder Adam Duvall served as a reminder of that on Sunday.

In between innings of the Braves’ game against the A’s, some fans seated in the right-field Chop House seats built up a pyramid of beer cups. And they desperately tried to get Duvall’s attention for some target practice.

Duvall realized exactly what the fans wanted him to do, and in one simple throw, he took out the entire beer cup pyramid.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C7wQ0ZWuzsl/

We’re talking about a throw that was up a 16-foot wall and a few rows back. It’s one thing if he was throwing at a target on level ground, but Duvall had to get the height and distance just right. That was far from easy, and he got it on his first attempt.

It’s silly how good MLB players are at baseball. That’s proof right there.

Boston’s Adam Duvall hit a walk-off stunner thanks to a catastrophic error on Baltimore

An absolutely brutal mistake on what would have been a game-winning play.

With two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning the Boston Red Sox were down 8-7 to the visiting Baltimore Orioles. Felix Bautista took the mound for the O’s, and Masataka Yoshida stepped into the batter’s box for the home squad. Yoshida, who finished 0-for-5 at the plate with one strikeout, made contact with the ball and sent a seemingly harmless pop fly to shallow left.

Baltimore left fielder Ryan McKenna settled underneath the ball, waiting to easily secure the victory for his squad and improve to 2-0 on the season. Ah, if it were only that simple. McKenna takes his eye off the ball for a moment, letting it glance off the heel of his glove and tumbling to the turf.

That brought up Adam Duvall, the hottest hitter of the night for the Sox with a 3-for-4 mark at the plate. After taking a ball inside, Duvall got the pitch he wanted and clobbered the walk-off two-run home run over the Green Monster.

An absolutely brutal mistake by an outfielder who can probably make that play in his sleep, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. It’s definitely an emphatic way for the Red Sox to secure their first win of 2023.

An unreal Adam Ottavino slider drew the saddest swing from the Braves’ Adam Duvall

He threw a frisbee.

There’s been plenty of complaints in the early going of the 2022 season about MLB switching out the baseballs for a deader, slicker ball. Well, someone should make sure that they didn’t switch out the baseballs for Wiffle balls because that’s what Mets reliever Adam Ottavino had his pitches looking like on Tuesday.

Ottavino entered the game in the sixth inning against the Braves and looked to shut down Atlanta’s rally following a three-run fifth inning. After promptly getting out Travis Demeritte and striking out Dansby Swanson, Ottavino proceeded to have Adam Duvall looking helpless in the batter’s box with an unfair slider.

That’s just cruel. Baseballs aren’t supposed to do that. It looked like a frisbee.

Duvall ended up striking out in the at-bat (all on sliders), but fans really could not get over that one pitch. Duvall didn’t stand a chance.

The Braves managed to rob themselves of a run thanks to an unthinkably awful base-running blunder

What in the world …

With the Braves and Brewers both having stacked rotations — particularly at the top end — runs have been difficult to come by in the NLDS. The two teams went into Monday’s Game 3 with six total runs scored between them in the series.

So, yeah, every opportunity to score a run could be a make-or-break moment in the series. And if the Braves don’t come away with a win in Game 3, it’ll be impossible to overlook what Adam Duvall did on the base path.

The Braves were threatening in the second inning against Freddy Peralta with one out and runners on first and third. All they needed was a deep fly ball from Travis d’Arnaud to bring home Austin Riley and give Ian Anderson a much-needed early lead. And guess what!? They got that fly ball from d’Arnaud and still managed to end the inning without scoring.

Only the Braves could do that.

d’Arnaud pulled a fly ball to Christian Yelich in left field with more than enough distance for Riley to tag from third and score. But in a complete lapse of awareness, Duvall tagged from first on the throw and was thrown out at second. Because Duvall was called out before Riley crossed home plate, the run didn’t count, and the inning ended.

It was a brutal turn of events for the Braves — a totally unnecessary mistake too. Duvall had to know that Yelich wasn’t going home with the throw, and there was no reason to even try to tag from first. If he stays put, the Braves get a run and continue the inning.

Good teams can’t make mistakes like that. Leave the errors to Chipper Jones in the stands. 

The Braves’ Adam Duvall was called out on a home run after umpire’s weird blunder

You don’t see that happen too often.

Braves outfielder Adam Duvall has quietly been having one of the best offensive seasons in baseball. He leads the National League with 109 RBI. He’s second with 37 home runs. And he’s one of the main reasons that the Braves have been able to stay in first place despite a season-ending injury to Ronald Acuña Jr.

But he absolutely deserved to finish Wednesday’s game with an extra home run and RBI to his name. He has umpires Sam Holbrook and Mike Muchlinski to blame for that.

In the first inning at Chase Field, Duvall drove a fly ball to deep center field that cleared the fence after bouncing off Diamondbacks outfielder Jake McCarthy’s glove. It should have been a home run. Yet, confusion from the umpiring crew had the Braves in disarray on the base path.

Neither Holbrook (the crew chief) nor Muchlinski at second base made a ruling on the play, which had Austin Riley thinking the ball was caught. As Riley went back to first to tag, he let the confused Duvall pass him on the base path. That mishap took away Duvall’s home run.

This brought the rarely seen MLB Rule 5.09(b)(9) into play, which determines that the runner is out when he passes a preceding runner. Because Duvall ended up in front of Riley, Duvall was called out while Riley and Freddie Freeman were able to score. It was ruled a two-run single for Duvall with an out on the base path instead of a three-run home run.

Baseball is weird like that.

Still, all that confusion really fell on the umpires. In that situation, you’d like to see the crew briefly call the play dead to determine what happened (and get the call right) rather than punish a team for reacting to a no-call. Had they called it a home run from the start, Riley wouldn’t have retreated to first, and Duvall wouldn’t have passed him.

The Braves can laugh about it, though, because the call didn’t impact the game. Atlanta went on to win, 9-2.