Top Three Plays of the Day in the MLB Playoffs – 10/6 [.GIFs]

As the Texas Rangers have now been eliminated from the MLB Playoffs, I am expanding my horizons to enjoy baseball for the rest of the year not as a fan of a certain team, but as a fan of the sport.

To achieve this goal, I have compiled what I considered to be the top three plays of today’s action, and put them in nice little .GIFs for you. We’ll do it really dramatically and count in reverse order to the top play. That’s how they do it in show business.

Play #3: Stephen Drew is a Good Shortstop

 

 

The Oakland Athletics had serious trouble at the shortstop position for the first half of 2012, and that’s why they went out and traded for Stephen Drew in August. Drew is no superstar, and certainly has not reached the ceiling once projected for him as a prospect, but he has fixed the A’s issue at shortstop, or at least improved it dramatically.

Play #2: Brandon Belt Flips Out

 

 

Just imagine what would have happened if he had gone into the visitor’s dugout.

Play #3: Pat Neshek.

 

 

This may look like a fairly ordinary strikeout to an ordinary batter by an ordinary pitcher to you, unless you know the story behind the pitcher. On the mound in this play is Pat Neshek, a reliever with 174 career innings pitched for three different teams. What makes Neshek extraordinary is that just two days ago, he and his wife Stephanee lost their firstborn son, less than 24 hours after he had been born. The range of emotions that Neshek has experienced in the past week is unfathomable. He has been a part of a miraculous Oakland team that made a huge comeback to win the AL West and make the playoffs, he experienced the birth of his first child, then suddenly and without explanation had to endure the loss of that child, and tonight he got two key outs for the Athletics in Game 1 of a playoff series. This is one of those sports stories that is larger than life.

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