Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina has tons of hardware due to his longstanding impressive work behind the plate. He still remains one of the best in the business when it comes to nailing would-be opposing base-stealers, too.
On Friday, however, the Reds got the better of him. Billy Hamilton and Joey Votto stole two bases each, meaning that for the first time in Molina's career, an opposing team had successfully swiped four bases against him.
The previous high in a game was three, which happened against Molina on the following dates:
May 19, 2005
Sept. 18, 2007
May 5, 2008
May 4, 2012
April 9, 2014
Obviously there are other variables that determine success on stolen bases than the catcher. Some pitchers are much slower to home than others, and some pitches are tougher to handle quickly enough. We can never with 100-percent certainty put all the praise or blame with the catcher on steal attempts.
Still, this is a story because it's never happened to Molina before and his success rate remains excellent.
Heading into Friday, Molina had cut down 42 percent of opposing base-stealers while the league average was 28 percent. Last season, he got almost half, throwing out 21 runners in 44 attempts. For his career, his caught stealing rate is 44.52 percent (he's the active leader by more than six percent).
Factor in that not many even try to run on him, and getting four in one game is a significant accomplishment.
