During the regular season, Dodgers catcher Yasmani Grandal was one of the NL West champ's most valuable contributors. In addition to being a skilled pitch-framer behind the plate, Grandal also put up an OPS+ of 121 with 24 home runs in 140 games. Grandal also homered in the NLDS against the Braves.
However, in Game 1 of the NLCS against the Brewers in Milwaukee, Grandal endured one of the worst defensive games of his career.
In the third inning, Grandal allowed a passed ball to allow Lorenzo Cain to advance to third and Christian Yelich to go to second. Then Jesus Aguilar smoked a line drive that David Freese somehow managed to snare. That would've been the second out of the inning, but Aguilar on his swing just nicked Grandal's mitt. That erased the out and loaded the bases on catcher's interference.
Then Hernan Perez lifted a ball to center that allowed Cain to tag up and score. The throw from Cody Bellinger came home, and Grandal was unable to secure it, which allowed Yelich and Aguilar to move up. Grandal was charged with an error on the play. The Brewers scored two runs in the inning to take a 2-1 lead.
All of that plus his passed ball in the first inning allowed Grandal to make unfortunate postseason history in Game 1 ...
Yasmani Grandal is the first catcher in postseason history with two passed balls and two errors in the same game.
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) October 13, 2018
And ...
The only other time that a catcher had an error, passed ball, and catcher's interference in the same postseason inning came exactly one year ago today in NLDS Gm 5 - The Nats' Matt Wieters had a passed ball and error on the same play, followed by CI. https://t.co/YvCQdZLvz4
— Stats By STATS (@StatsBySTATS) October 13, 2018
In more than 1,000 defensive innings during the regular season, Grandal allowed just nine passed balls and committed just seven errors. Playoff weirdness, man.
You can follow along with all the NLCS action in our live blog or stream the game on fuboTV (Try for free).
