A running joke in the Pirates’ clubhouse this year is who would win in a foot race, Colin Moran or Jacob Stallings.
On Saturday, Stallings became the first of the duo to triple this season, doing so in the sixth inning of the Pirates’ 4-0 win over the Rockies in the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader at PNC Park.
Stallings barreled a fly ball to center, and after center fielder Yonathan Daza failed to catch up with it, his momentum carried him into left-center and out of the play. By the time the Rockies got the ball back into the infield, Stallings was close to third and was able to slide in safely:
He’s a runner, he’s a track star. pic.twitter.com/1IAR5wC85J
— Pirates (@Pirates) May 29, 2021
“If you stay around long enough, you see things you’ve never seen before,” Derek Shelton joked postgame. “We’ve never seen something like that.”
That is Stallings’ first Major-League triple, and his first three-bagger since he played for Class AAA Indianapolis in 2018.
He later came home on a single by Will Craig.
What was going through Adam Frazier’s mind watching that play develop? “Give him an inhaler for when he gets back to the dugout.”
“Just glad he made it, because he was running out of gas there and still breathing hard when he got in there,” Frazier said.
Just another hustle play for “the cheetah.”
“So he’s got a [stolen] bag and a triple this year,” Shelton said. “I would have put money against both of those if we were betting at the beginning of the year.”
And in case you’re wondering who would win that foot race between Stallings and Moran, Baseball Savant lists Stallings’ sprint speed at 23.4 feet per second, 409th out of 413 tracked players. Moran is ranked 398th at 24.2 ft/sec. So, analytically speaking, slight edge to Moran right now.
