Red Sox run themselves into rare triple play during win over Braves

BOSTON -- The Red Sox beat the best team in baseball on Tuesday night. But not before they ran into a disastrous and rare triple play. 

The Red Sox have had a knack for running into outs on the base paths this season, but Tuesday night's display of baserunning ineptitude takes the cake. In the bottom of the third inning, the Red Sox ran into an 8-3-5 triple play, which hadn't happened in baseball since 1884. 

That is no typo. It had been 139 years since baseball had seen such a triple play.

Here's how it all played out. Triston Casas stepped to the play with runners on first and second and no outs. He hit a shallow fly ball to center, which Michael Harris II easily caught. For whatever reason, Adam Duvall didn't see that Harris II was about to make an easy play on Casas' fly ball and kept creeping further and further to second base. When Harris II caught the ball, Duvall had no shot at making it back to first. He was thrown out 8-3 for the second out of the play.

For good measure, Masataka Yoshida doubled down on Boston's poor baserunning. After he made it back to second, he tried to advance to third while the Braves gunned Duvall down at first. Yoshida, who isn't known for his speed, was out at third base by roughly 40 feet. 

Here is the 8-3-5 triple play in all its glory:

Boston's inexcusable display of baserunning was the first triple play of the 2023 season, and the first time the Sox have been tripled up since May 2, 2017.

No one living had ever seen an 8-3-5 triple play until Tuesday night. The last time one of those was recorded was June 7, 1884 in a game between the Boston Beaneaters and the Providence Grays. 

At least the Red Sox didn't let the triple play derail an otherwise solid game. Boston held a 2-1 lead at the time, and went on to win 7-1 for the team's third straight victory.