Phillies' Bruntlett has triple crowning moment of his career
Unassisted Triple Play Ends Phils' Win Over Mets
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Phillies win three of four vs. Mets
Those select few players who make a career out of being a utility infielder usually are good at going unnoticed, and Eric Bruntlett definitely fits that job description.
Perhaps the most notable aspect of the 31-year-old's major-league career before Sunday's game was simply that it was in his seventh year despite his .227 career average.
Of course, that changed in the incredible span of a few seconds during the ninth inning of the Phillies' 9-7 win, when Bruntlett became the 15th player in major-league history to turn an unassisted triple play.
Here's how it happened:
With runners on first and second and the Phillies clinging to a two-run lead, the Mets called for a hit-and-run on a 2-and-2 pitch. The runners took off and Jeff Francoeur hit a bullet of a line drive up the middle.
Bruntlett was in perfect position to catch it only because he was covering second for the back end of the double steal. He grabbed it, easily stepped on second to double off Luis Castillo and tagged Daniel Murphy, who was unable to elude him.
"The ball just ended up being right at me and the bag was there and the other runner was right there, too," he said. "It all happened so fast."
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it was only the second time in modern baseball that a game ended on an unassisted triple play. The first time it happened was May 31, 1927.
"That's a lot of years," Bruntlett said.
The weirdest part, Bruntlett said, was processing what had just happened. Everything that occurred during the play was instinctive, but because the play was over so quickly, he didn't quite know how to celebrate.
"I was almost laughing," he said. "That doesn't happen. It's hard to say what to do there."
The last unassisted triple play occurred May 12, 2008, by Cleveland's Asdrubal Cabrera.
In an odd twist, Bruntlett played a role in getting both runners on base in the ninth to set up the triple play. With Angel Pagan on third after Ryan Howard's three-base error, Bruntlett booted Castillo's grounder. He recovered in time to make a strong throw to first, but Castillo barely beat it out.
Murphy followed with a grounder up the middle, to the right of second base. Bruntlett said he got a bad jump on it because he wasn't sure if he should go after the ball or cover the base. He knocked the ball down but had no play.
Just before the pitch to Francoeur, Bruntlett remembered seeing Castillo "jockeying, maybe looking like he was going to try to steal a base. On that pitch, he did."
Maybe whatever millisecond of an advantage he earned by noticing that helped position him to make history. "I probably don't catch that ball," he said, "if they're not running."
