Rays' Souza makes perhaps worst diving catch attempt ever, homers for retribution
Statcast estimates that Souza's diving attempt only came up ... 23 feet short
By
Mike Axisa
•
1 min read
Friday night, the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Minnesota Twins (TB 5, MIN 2) in their series opener at Target Field thanks largely to Chris Archer. The Tampa ace struck out 11 and allowed only two runs in 7 2/3 innings.
In the seventh inning, Steven Souza tried to save Archer a run by attempting a diving catch in right field. He was not particularly close to making the play. In fact, he was so far away from making the play that he couldn't help but laugh at himself afterward. That's okay, Souza made up for it with a monster home run in his next at-bat.
Check it out:
Give that man an A for effort.
After the game Souza wanted to know exactly how far short he fell with his diving catch attempt, so he pinged the folks at Statcast:
@statcast can you we get a breakdown on my play tonight?
— Steven Souza Jr. (@SouzaJr) May 27, 2017
@SouzaJr We checked: You needed to cover 73 feet and came up … 23 short.
— #Statcast (@statcast) May 27, 2017
0% catch probability, but a five-star effort!
Of course, the Rays and Souza can laugh about his missed dive because they won the game. It wouldn't have been so funny had they lost.
