While the Nationals certainly aren’t White Sox bad or Marlins bad, nobody is going to confuse them with a good baseball team. For one play, though, they did look like a last-place team with some base running that belonged nowhere near an MLB game.
In the eighth inning of the Nationals’ eventual win against the Yankees on Wednesday, José Tena drove a line drive over Aaron Judge’s head and bouncing off the wall. But for whatever reason, Joey Gallo had a terrible read over at second base, which led to a late break on the base path. As he was rounding third, he hesitated and then decided to, uh, run towards home from a complete stop.
That awful idea was only made worse by Juan Yepez deciding to go to third and then retreating to second with Tena inexplicably running back to first from second base. It was mayhem.
The Yankees turned an 8-6-2-3-2-5-4 double play pic.twitter.com/b1uDyOiIsA
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) August 29, 2024
Yepez should have stayed at third and let Gallo get tagged out. The Nats would’ve had runners at second and third. Instead, they nearly ran into a phone number for an 8-6-2-3-2-5-4 double play.
No wonder MLB fans had jokes for the abysmal base running. That scorebook must have been something else.
Nats spring training baserunning drills https://t.co/wFyRjQB9Y3 pic.twitter.com/9C2Y6WiPt6
— David Steele (@David_C_Steele) August 29, 2024
Woops. Slightly embarrassing for the base runners. https://t.co/ItjgDBHd4o
— Mike Hollenbach (@mhbach97) August 29, 2024
I’ve watched a lot of baseball.
I ain’t never seen this. https://t.co/tLxqKm7u7Y
— Tim Vandenberghe (@Vandentim) August 29, 2024
Every HS baseball coach in America would have those guys running poles until they puked… https://t.co/TTqTvpUtDJ
— bballdad4⃣4⃣7⃣4⃣5⃣ #36 (@bballdad44745) August 29, 2024
This is what happens when you hold L1 a millisecond too long in MLB The Show https://t.co/1YrZNZcaT3
— Andrew Battifarano (@AndrewAtBatt) August 29, 2024
How is this not the Mets https://t.co/ybsHwxkLuP
— Lauren (@labelle_19) August 29, 2024
I can see my dad with his paper score card where he used to color in the bases just giving up on a play like this. I love this goofy game. https://t.co/6E0FoSJP9V
— Ali Lynch (@aliblynch) August 29, 2024
Running the bases like i do in MLB the Show https://t.co/Uds5PxLkvX
— Tony (@TonyDrinksBeer) August 29, 2024
