Inside The Phillies

Watch: Phillies Pull Off Play Not Seen in Nearly 100 Years

The Philadelphia Phillies pulled off one of the rarest triple plays in baseball on Monday night against the Detroit Tigers.

Brad Wakai

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola / Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
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Coming out of a weekend series that saw the Philadelphia Phillies take down the Arizona Diamondbacks in their NLCS rematch from last season, they are feeling good about themselves having taken over the best record in the MLB once again.

With seven games against the lowly Detroit Tigers and Miami Marlins to close out the month, the Phillies have a great opportunity to grow their lead in the NL East standings after it shrunk a bit following the Atlanta Braves getting a bit hot.

Aaron Nola took the ball in the opener against the Tigers, and after his offense spotted him a 4-0 in the top of the first inning, it became his job to make sure the opposing bats stayed quiet.

He was cruising early, recording three strikeouts through his first two frames, but in the third inning, things got a little complicated for Nola.

After allowing two straight singles, there were runners on first and third with no one out. The veteran has had a much better regular season so far, but he's also had some moments where things have gotten away from him, and that could have presented itself once again here.

Instead, Philadelphia pulled off one of the rarest triple plays ever.

As can be seen in the video, Nola caught a comebacker and was able to toss it over to first base to get the runner out there. Normally, that would give the runner on third time to get back to the bag, but Zach McKinstry seemingly thought the ball hit back to Nola was a grounder as he kept running towards home when the ball was sent over to first.

After Bryce Harper doubled up the runner, he calmly flipped the ball over to Alec Bohm and pulled of the rare 1-3-5 triple play.

How rare is something like that?

According to Baseball Almanac, it was the first time since 1929 that this has occurred in a game, with that one also featuring the Tigers during their contest against the Red Sox.

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Brad Wakai

BRAD WAKAI

Brad Wakai graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Journalism. While an undergrad, he did work at the student radio station covering different Penn State athletic programs like football, basketball, volleyball, soccer and other sports. Brad currently is the Lead Contributor for Nittany Lions Wire of Gannett Media where he continues to cover Penn State athletics. He is also a contributor at FanSided, writing about the Philadelphia 76ers for The Sixers Sense. Brad is the host of the sports podcast I Said What I Said, discussing topics across the NFL, College Football, the NBA and other sports. You can follow him on Twitter: @bwakai

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