A handful of names flash through the mind when thinking of great catches that have robbed home runs. Let's see, there's Mike Trout, Dewayne Wise (look it up), Jim Edmonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Endy Chavez (look that one up, too), Mookie Betts, Kenny Lofton, Bo Jackson, Torii Hunter …
There's more. Lot's more.
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One name you won't find on the list is Sylvester Stallone - or, more precisely, his Rambo character.
But that's who Odubel Herrera compared himself to after making a you-had-to-see-it-to-believe-it, home-run-stealing catch on Atlanta's Freddie Freeman in the third inning of the Phillies' 4-1 loss to the Braves at Citizens Bank Park Saturday night (see first take).
Herrera rose letter-high above the six-foot center field wall to make the catch. The momentum of the ball carried his glove into the shrubs beyond the wall. Some of the foliage actually broke off the bush. Herrera suffered a couple scratches on his arm and after the game felt more Hollywood than Willie Mays.
"Like Rambo, you know?" he said, laughing.
Herrera's catch was the talk of the night, overshadowing an 11-strikeout game for Phillies hitters. Phillies management is on record as saying the team's propensity for strikeouts is not a major concern because it is balanced with a high walk rate, but some contact in the late innings might have made it a closer game. The Phillies struck out four times with runners on base in the final two innings, leaving three runners.
Nick Pivetta allowed four runs in five innings and took the loss. Mike Foltynewicz held the Phils to three runs over six innings for the win.
Pivetta got some big help from Herrera's heist on Freeman in the third. Freeman crushed a 95-mph fastball. It looked like a two-run home run off the bat and that would have given the Braves a 5-0 lead. When Herrera made the catch, television replays caught Pivetta raising his arms and exclaiming, "Holy s---!"
He had a point.
Rightfielder Nick Williams had a good look at the catch.
"I had to pause and take that in," Williams said. "I didn't even make the catch and I had to soak it in. It was awesome. It was sick."
"What a tremendous play," manager Gabe Kapler said. "Incredible jump, timed his jump perfectly, having his glove go into the bushes like that. You never know what's going to happen in that kind of situation.
"More and more, Odubel just shows you how engaged he is, how dynamic he is, how athletic he is, and how invested he is in our baseball games. You see how emotional he is and we love that and we don't want to do anything but celebrate it."
This wasn't Herrera's first robbery of the season. He stole one from Cincinnati's Scooter Gennett at home earlier this month. But it wasn't quite as athletic or dramatic a play as this one.
Amazingly, it wasn't the first time Herrera had gone into the bushes to make a catch.
"En mi casa," he said with a laugh, referring to a backyard pickup game at home in Venezuela.
