The Yankees were down 4-0 to the Rays on Thursday. Austin Wells homered in the sixth. Then the seventh inning happened, and most of it happened to George Lombard Jr.
First he doubled over Chandler Simpson in left to make it 4-2. Then, per the AP, a 101 mph pitch caromed off catcher Liam Hicks’ mitt and Lombard took third. Then a 3-1 curveball broke outside, clipped the mitt, hit the backstop and bounced right back to Hicks.
Lombard ran anyway.
Here is the play, as the AP described it and as we have since replayed it in our heads a few hundred times: a feet-first slide that turned into a pop-up, a jump over the catcher, a twist in fair territory, and a right hand reaching down for the plate. 4-3.
“I was in trouble, had to figure something out and it just happened,” Lombard said.
Hicks was gracious about it: “Once you’re on your stomach blocking the plate, there’s really nothing I could have done. Credit to him for making that play.”
Aaron Boone went with the most specific compliment of the night: “a really good athletic play by the old soccer player.”
The Yankees tied it later in the inning. In the eighth, Lombard hit a tiebreaking two-run homer into the second deck in left. Final: 6-4.
He is 21, the son of former big leaguer George Lombard, and since his debut on Aug. 4 he has become the Yankees’ starting shortstop: .243 with seven homers and 22 RBIs, and .310 with four homers over his last 10 games.
There is a lot of talk every fall about players “rising to the moment.” Mostly that is something we say after the fact. But every once in a while a kid is out of options halfway down the third-base line, and instead of giving up, he decides to leave the ground.
We don’t know what that is. We know it’s not something they teach.