That…
…is brilliant.
By my count Tulowitzki made five outs on the play. Catch, touched second, tagged the runner coming from first, went back and touched second again, and then, just for luck, threw to first. His mind must have been just whirling.
As a non-baseball fan, can someone explain to me exactly what happened here? I get that there were three outs on the same play, and that one of them was the batter who was caught, but I don’t get what’s happening with the fielder touching the base and tagging the runner.
Guy on second takes off toward third and is out due to caught ball and second base tagged. The base runner from first was tagged out while running towards second. He would’ve also been out if the ball had been thrown to first base, but this negates the extremely rare unassisted triple play.
Just in case that wasn’t clear, if the ball is caught on the fly, the runners must make it back to their bases before the base or the runner is tagged out. On this play, the guy who caught the ball managed to tag one base (getting the runner on second out) and then tag one runner (getting the runner on first out).