Jo Adell robs three home runs in Angels’ 1-0 win over Mariners: Ranking the three stellar catches

An outfielder will at times experience games where he has pretty much zero impact on the game, defensively, though no fault of his own. That’s just the nature of the position. Sometimes they just don’t hit it your way. There’s also the chance that only a few opportunities happen, but that they carry an outsized impact on the game. Enter Jo Adell’s performance on Saturday night for the Angels. 

The succinct summary: Adell robbed three home runs in a 1-0 Angels win over the Mariners. 

Let that sink in. Oh and we can watch the catches, too. 

As regular baseball watchers know, sometimes a player will jump up close to the wall and it wasn’t necessarily a true home run robbery — that is, without the catch, the ball would have hit high up on the wall and stayed in play. None of these three were of that variety. These were legitimate larcenies.

There’s no official stat on robbing home runs for a variety of reasons, but this certainly appears to be the first ever three-robbery night for a single outfielder. 

“After the first one, I was pretty fired up,” Adell said (via the Associated Press). “When I got to the second one, which looked identical to the first, I thought, ‘Wow, my routes are on point tonight.’ The third one was just grit. Top of the ninth, you have to get it done. It was crazy.

Now, in the video above, let’s focus in on the last one where Adell fell into the crowd. You might have noted that the announcer said it was a home run at first. Here’s the snippet from the MLB rulebook that applies, from the “definitions” chapter on the definition of a catch. 

Catches Proximate To A Boundary (a) General A fielder may jump on top of or otherwise reach over a fence, railing, rope or other line of demarcation to make a catch, and may fall over the same after completing a catch. He also may climb onto or otherwise jump on top of a railing, fence or canvas marking the boundary of the field or that may otherwise be in foul ground to make a catch. However, a fielder may not step or jump into the stands, dugout, any other out-of-play area (i.e., over a fence or railing) in order to catch a fair or foul ball.  

What matters here is that Adell completed the catch before falling into the crowd — though, holy smokes, it was close. It was confirmed via replay review. The lasting image of Adell celebrating in the stands with the fans is one of the coolest things we’ve seen here in the early going and a lifetime memory for every fan in the vicinity.

When one thinks of amazing catches from an Angels outfielder, it wouldn’t take long before Torii Hunter comes to mind. The nine-time Gold Glover once robbed Barry Bonds in the All-Star Game and was known for highlight-reel catches. Hunter also just happened to be in the dugout, as he’s a special assistant for the Angels. 

“I’ve never seen three home run robberies in one game, and I’ve never seen a guy on the third one fall into the stands, catch the ball and keep his feet in like he’s a wide receiver,” Hunter said (via the Associated Press). “I was jumping up and down. I almost passed out.

“It was like a movie scene,” Hunter said of Adell’s third catch. “It was like the music was playing, then he caught the ball, then he went down and we didn’t see him anymore. The music paused, he came up and said, ‘Yeah!’ I started cheering and almost blacked out.”

Hunter has served as a defensive mentor for Adell, too. 

“His impact has been huge,” Adell said. “It’s mental when you’re out there — it’s a mindset of going to get the baseball, being aggressive. Early, I was caught in between on some plays, and sometimes that happens.

“When you err on the side of being aggressive and trying to make the plays, you’d be surprised at how many plays you make. That’s the mindset Torii had all those years, winning all those Gold Gloves.”

This was, truly, one of the most impactful games you’ll see from an outfielder on defense. It’s mind-boggling to consider that the Angels won a game 1-0 and he robbed three home runs, especially with one of them coming in the ninth inning and him tumbling into the stands. 

Let’s rank ’em!

3. The Raleigh Robbery

This was an absolutely brilliant play in the first inning that just happened to be overshadowed by the rest of Adell’s exploits in this game. Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, still looking for his first homer after clubbing 60 last season, gave Adell very little time. It was hit 104.7 miles per hour and wasn’t too high in the air. As you can see in the highlight, Adell had to hurry back to the wall and perfectly time his leap. Also, keep in mind that, given how hard the ball was hit, there was never any time to take his eyes off the ball, meaning he had to feel where the wall was. So many times we’ll end up seeing a player mistime his jump or run into the wall here. Instead, it was seamless. 

2. Robbing Naylor

The Josh Naylor would-be home run that was robbed by Adell was actually a less impressive catch, overall (this is all relative, of course, because all three catches were absurd). This time, there was time to find the wall and gather himself, which is always easier (relatively speaking!) than what happened on the Raleigh play. I’m ranking it above, however, because it was the eighth inning in a one-run game, meaning he saved the game. That gets bonus points. 

The saving of the game would’ve only been temporary if it wasn’t for Adell, again … 

1. Saving the game

An easy choice. This, off the bat of J.P. Crawford, was the most difficult play and happened in the ninth inning of a 1-0 game. It might well end up the biggest catch of the season for the Angels in what was only their ninth game. 

It’s easy to miss this part due to what happened afterward, but Adell had to track this ball while covering a lot of ground — for different reasons, but much like the Raleigh catch, he couldn’t take his eyes off the ball and had to just feel his surroundings. Then he had to gather himself exactly at the wall while extending his glove exactly far enough to secure the catch, sacrifice his body while falling over the rail without worrying about breaking his fall and secure the ball in his glove before crashing over the wall while making sure the ball doesn’t squirt out of the glove when he hits the ground. 

“You just get there, then it’s decision-making,” Adell said. “The ball was hit high enough to where I could get there. I watched it (into my glove), fell over and ended up in somebody’s lap. I don’t know who it was, but it was a softer landing than I expected. The fans were as fired up as me.”

This would be an insane catch in the fifth inning of a 10-0 game. 

It actually happened in the ninth inning of a 1-0 game. 

We already have our first catch of the year candidate and it happened to be the third home run theft of the game by a single player. And I know I’m repeating myself, but that’s because it bears repeating as often as possible: It was a 1-0 win!

Take a bow, Jo Adell. That was a historic defensive night in right field.