Four pitchers in Nats’ games got a triple play from the first batter they faced

Lefty Sammy Solis faced a daunting task when he came in the eighth inning on July 29, 2016, in San Francisco against the Giants. Two other Nats relievers had loaded the bases without retiring a batter. Max Scherzer had left after seven solid innings with a 4-1 lead.

Oliver Perez started the inning by giving up two singles. Blake Treinen walked the one man he faced. The rookie Solis came in to face Brandon Crawford. Ryan Zimmerman entered the game at the same time to play first base.

The first pitch by Solis was a strike. Crawford offered at the next pitch and hit a low liner right at Zimmerman. The Nats’ veteran grabbed it before it hit the dirt, took a few steps to the bag to double off Buster Posey, then threw across the diamond to Anthony Rendon, who was waiting at third. Denard Span had taken off for home, thinking the ball had hit the dirt. The triple play got Solis out the inning on two pitches.

Two more relievers closed out the game, with Shawn Kelley getting a strikeout for a one-out save. The first triple play in Nationals’ history also was the first to be scored 3-3-5, even though triple plays often start with line drives.

For a full account of the game, check out SABR’s Games Project story by Laura H. Peebles.

The three post-1900 Washington teams have been in four of the 39 games since then in which pitchers have come in to provide instant relief, getting the first batter to hit into a triple play. The original Senators and the Nationals each have turned the trick. The original and expansion Nats each hit into one such triple play, but Washington won all four games.

Thanks to extensive efforts by three SABR members, the late James A. Smith Jr., Stephen D. Boren and Herm Krabbenhoft, baseball researchers can rely on the SBK Triple Play database for details that result in posts such as this.

The expansion Nats were on the wrong end of a triple play on July 15, 1969, against the Tigers. In the fifth inning and Washington up, 4-0, Detroit brought in Daryl Patterson to relieve veteran Don McMahon, who began the inning, but hadn’t recorded an out. He had yielded two singles and a double before third baseman Don Wert booted a ground ball. Pitcher Barry Moore followed with a single, increasing the Senators’ lead to 7-0. Patterson was faced with runners on first and second and none out. His first batter, Ed Brinkman, hit the first pitch sharply on the ground to third. Wert redeemed himself by starting a 5-4-3 triple play.

Patterson thus joined a list of relief pitchers who have entered a game with or two or three men on base and thrown a pitch that resulted in a triple play. (Solis was no. 37 on the list.) Patterson is one of just 13 who did it with his first pitch.

The 1914 Senators turned the first of these 39 instant-relief triple plays. On April 29, 1914, in Philadelphia, Doc Ayers relieved Joe Engel with two runs in and nobody out in the sixth inning. The A’s had tied the game, 3-3, and had runners on second and third.

Ayers missed with his first two pitches. Shortstop Jack Barry hit the third pitch on a line to first baseman Chick Gandil, who threw to third baseman Eddie Foster, who tagged third ahead of Stuffy McInnis. Foster’s throw to shortstop George McBride beat Amos Strunk, who must have been running on the pitch, to second base for the third out, 3-5-6. Thanks in part to the triple play, Washington hung on to win, 6-4.

On August 11, 1922, in the ninth inning, a triple play snuffed out a Nats’ rally in Boston. With Washington up 5-4, Sam Rice and Bucky Harris had opened the ninth with singles, knocking out Red Sox reliever Bill Piercy.

Clyde Milan bunted the first pitch by Boston’s Allen Russell into the dirt near home plate. Both runners were moving, but slowed down when they thought the ball was going foul. Red Sox catcher Muddy Ruhl (a World Series hero for the ’24 Nats) picked up the ball and fired to third to force Rice. The Sox third baseman threw across the diamond to get the slow-footed Ruhl at first. Then Harris was gunned down trying to advance to third, completing an unusual 2-5-3-5 triple play.

No matter: Walter Johnson, who had given up four runs in the eighth thanks to shaky fielding, shut Boston down in the ninth to preserve the win.