Phillies turned a triple play 95 years in the making against the Tigers

The beauty of baseball — or any sport really — is that when you watch a game you might see something that has not happened in a long time.

For example, fans at Comerica Park Monday night saw something that has not happened in baseball in almost a century.

The Detroit Tigers led off the bottom of the third inning with back-to-back singles off Philadelphia Phillies starting pitcher Aaron Nola. That gave the home team runners at the corners with no outs, a perfect chance to chip away at what was at the time a 4-0 Phillies lead.

But with one swing of the bat, the inning ended, as the Phillies turned the rare 1-3-5 triple play:

Nola jammed leadoff hitter Matt Vierling with a 91-mph sinker in on his hands, and the center fielder broke his bat on a soft liner right back to the pitcher. Nola caught the slow liner in the air for the first out and quickly threw to first to double up Carson Kelly who was caught in no man’s land between first and second.

Zach McKinstry, who led off the inning with a single, was on third and read the play as if it was a grounder off Vierling’s bat. He went halfway down the third-base line and broke for home when Nola threw to Bryce Harper at first.

Of course, the problem with that is that he had not tagged up, so Harper calmly threw over to third baseman Alec Bohm to complete the rare 1-3-5 triple play.

“A lot of things [were] flying,” McKinstry said after the game. “... I just kind of took a shuffle, shuffle and went home on it. I don’t want to say I wasn’t sure, but I thought the ball hit the ground.

“I just kind of looked at Vierling like, ‘That was a line drive?’” McKinstry added. “And he was like, ‘Yeah.’ So, palm-to-face kind of thing.”

According to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), the 1-3-5 triple play marked several firsts in baseball. It was the first triple play turned this season, and the first triple play since the Los Angeles turned one against the Tampa Bay Rays back in August last season. It was also the Phillies’ first triple play since August 27, 2017, when they turned one against the Chicago Cubs.

Monday night’s triple play was also the first turned against the Tigers since August 3, 2017, when the Baltimore Orioles turned a 5-4-3 triple play in the top of the second inning. August of 2017 was apparently big for triple plays.

However, to find the last 1-3-5 triple play you have to back a little further in MLB history than 2017. In fact, according to SABR, you have to go back 95 years. According to SABR the last 1-3-5 triple play came at the expense of the Boston Red Sox in a game on July 11, 1929.

It was turned by the Tigers.

So you might say that Detroit had this coming.