Saturday night in Seattle, a few hours after Nelson Cruz hit a ball clear out of Safeco Field during batting practice, the Mariners and Twins played a wild back-and-forth game that ended with a 6-5 win for Minnesota (box score). The game featured five home runs and four lead changes.
The Mariners very nearly rallied to tie the game in the ninth inning. Cruz and Kyle Seager led the inning off with a walk and a single against Twins closer Kevin Jepsen, putting runners at the corners with no outs. Dae-Ho Lee lifted a fly ball to shallow right, too shallow to score pinch-runner Shawn O'Malley from third. Not ideal, but the Mariners still had two chances to get the tying home run.
The tying run never did score. The Mariners committed the ultra-rare double TOOTBLAN to end the game. What's a TOOTBLAN, you ask? It's an acronym that stands for "thrown out on the bases like a nincompoop." Here's the video:
Gosh, that's bad. Replays confirmed Seager was easily out at second base. The play at third was a bit more inconclusive. It appeared O'Malley may have gotten his fingers on the bag before the tag was applied, but it was not definitive, so the call on the field (out) stood.
That's a really tough situation for a runner. Seager, the runner between first and second, has to stay in the rundown as long as possible, hoping the Twins either throw it away or O'Malley manages to use his speed and score from third.
That play goes down as a 2-4-5-6 double play, by the way. The Twins have now won three straight games, but, at 14-34, they still have the worst record in the AL by six games.
