It's only Opening Day, but there's a pretty good chance Lorenzo Cain has made the best defense play of the season for the Milwaukee Brewers.
Thursday afternoon Cain robbed Cardinals slugger Jose Martinez of a would-be game-tying home run against Josh Hader in the bottom of the ninth. Rather than knot the game up 5-5 with two outs, the game was over (MIL 5, STL 4). Check it out:
LO CAIN. FOR. THE. WIN. 😱 #OpeningDay pic.twitter.com/2B34gddRLh
— MLB (@MLB) March 28, 2019
According to Statcast, similar batted balls (based on exit velocity and launch angle) go for a home run 62.0 percent of the time. Those batted balls have a .710 expected batted average. Point is, Martinez crushed it.
Home runs by Christian Yelich and starter Jhoulys Chacin (!) helped the Brewers to the Opening Day win. Cain has a single in addition to his game-saving catch, and maybe his spectacular grab in March will matter in the NL Central race in September.