[mlbvideo id=”433988683″ width=”650″ height=”364″ /]
The Tampa Bay Rays looked like they were going to get into an early hole against the Baltimore Orioles Monday night. Rays pitcher Chris Archer hung a curveball over the outside part of the plate against Orioles lead off hitter Manny Machado, and Machado crushed the ball to center field. It certainly looked like Machado was about to hit his 27th home run of 2015, but unfortunately for him, Kevin Kiermaier plays center field for the Rays and may or may not be Spider-Man.
Kiermaier did a spectacular job reading the ball off of Machado’s bat, got to the wall in right center, and managed to make a remarkable catch to save a run and get out one of the best offensive players in the league. The best part was watching the reactions from Kiermaier and Archer, as neither player could quite believe what happened.
When you wanna freak out, but you’re in public. pic.twitter.com/RHHZdC5FaG
— MLB GIFS (@MLBGIFs) August 31, 2015
The "I just made the #CatchOfTheYear" face. pic.twitter.com/lZYcNqJqvr
— MLB GIFS (@MLBGIFs) August 31, 2015
It’s not too surprising that Kiermaier made this play, as he’s been the best defensive player in baseball this year. There’s almost no way that Kiermaier isn’t a Gold Glover winner this season, and according to Fangraphs, Kiermaier leads the Majors in defensive runs above average, ultimate zone rating, and UZR per 150 games.
Still, this catch was amazing, and looked just like this amazing catch that Angels outfielder Mike Trout made a few years back. We’re sure that we’ll see this catch on a bunch of highlight reels at the end of the year.