Yasiel Puig has made some incredible catches and crashed into some very hard walls in his short career, and he added to both lists last night in one go. This might be the first time he's caught the same ball twice on one play in order to complete the out, though.
The Daily Puig: Yasiel Puig makes one running catch twice, fans shocked
How do you make a running catch more exciting? Catch the ball two times.
MLB.com
This has got everything you want and expect from a Puig catch: maximum effort, catching the ball at all costs, plus the casual flip of the ball from his glove to his hand. The best moment of the whole thing happens in the middle, though, which is more easily seen when you slow things down:
That’s some wondrous snow cone action on that catch there, and Puig decides to hit reset on the catch before falling to the ground so as to keep it from slipping out of his glove. You’ll see how necessary it was from this final angle:
It looks like it’s about to pop out even before he makes impact with the ground, but Puig flicks his wrist to release the ball and then close his glove around it once more to guarantee that the out was made:
Now look again at all the faces in the crowd. Every single fan has a face you can read as “DUDE” , “WHAT”, or “OH SHIT”, which are the only appropriate responses to Puig catching a ball a second time while he’s hovering in mid-air after crashing into a wall at full speed.
Pretty sure this is the “Puig Factor” spoken of in that child’s t-shirt.
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