Rays left fielder Chandler Simpson made a diving, wall-crunching catch in Game 3 of the World Series. Per Sportsnet, he took a fly ball from Sal Frelick for the second out of an inning against Freddy Peralta. Yahoo Sports said he smashed into the wall and took away extra bases from the Brewers. A r/baseball highlight post called it the "Superman catch." The MLB.com headline by Brian Murphy adds a second part: Simpson's speed "actually costs him" a stolen base before it enables the catch. The feed summary doesn't say how the steal was lost, so we can't either.
Only the MLB.com headline links the speed on the bases to the speed in the outfield. The other outlets describe only the catch. None of the summaries we have mention an injury to Simpson after the collision, and none give the score or inning of the play.
Our box score for Monday's game at Tropicana Field was still live, in the bottom of the fifth, when we pulled it. It showed Milwaukee ahead 10-0 on 13 hits, with eight runs in the fifth. Tampa Bay had one hit. Simpson was 0-for-2 with no stolen base. The box doesn't record the catch itself, so we can't say whether it came before the Brewers' big inning. One data oddity: Sportsnet has Peralta pitching against the Rays, but our tables list him as a Rays pitcher, so we won't say which side he was pitching for.
The catch fits what Simpson's season says about him. He hit .306 in 151 games with 175 hits, 46 steals and 14 times caught stealing, a 76.7 percent success rate. He has no home runs and a .689 OPS, so his value comes from putting the ball in play and running. Frelick hit .230 with four homers and a .614 OPS in 111 games, so a ball he lifted toward the wall was the kind of extra-base hit Simpson took away.
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MIL | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 16 | 0 |
| TB | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
Both clubs had strong regular seasons. Milwaukee went 103-59, won the NL Central and arrives on a five-game winning streak. That includes a 5-4 win over Tampa Bay on Saturday, Oct. 24. The Rays went 98-64 and won the AL East. They have lost their last game, and Monday's score points to a second straight loss.
The next game is Tuesday, Oct. 27, with Milwaukee at Tampa Bay, again at Tropicana Field.
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