{"id":2362118,"date":"2026-04-07T08:16:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T08:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2362118"},"modified":"2026-04-07T08:16:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T08:16:42","slug":"kansas-city-royals-pull-off-rare-double-play-not-seen-since-1995","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/kansas-city-royals-pull-off-rare-double-play-not-seen-since-1995\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas City Royals pull off rare double play not seen since 1995"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<div id=\"videoWrap\" class=\"spacer-large videoWrap\" style=\"position:relative\"><media-video video-id=\"89245816007\" title=\"Who will win the AL Central? Early season picks and predictions\" poster=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/authoring\/authoring-images\/2024\/06\/04\/NABJ\/73978623007-usatsi-23471247.jpeg?crop=3799,2137,x0,y0\" util-module-path=\"elements\/media\" placement=\"snow-video-story-priority\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"uwVideoPlaceholder\" slot=\"placeholder\" style=\"z-index:19;width:100%;padding-bottom:56.25%;position:relative\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"vidplaybtn\" style=\"display:-moz-box;display:-ms-flexbox;display:-webkit-flex;display:flex;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,.4);border:2px solid #fff;border-radius:80px;cursor:pointer;height:80px;width:80px;position:absolute;top:50%;left:50%;transform:translate(-50%,-50%);z-index:10\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vidplayicon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\" alt=\"play\" style=\"height:40px;margin:auto 18px auto 27px;width:40px\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div slot=\"videoDetails\" id=\"videoDetails\" class=\"videoDetails\" style=\"padding-top:8px;padding-bottom:8px\">\n<div id=\"videoDetailsContainer\" class=\"videoDetailsContainer\" hidden=\"\">\n<p>Who will win the AL Central? Early season picks and predictions<\/p>\n<p>Early storylines in the AL Central are emerging, with Bob Nightengale and Steve Gardner breaking down the division favorites.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/media-video><\/div>\n<p>The first 5-6-4-3 double play since 1995 required almost optimal conditions to transpire.<\/p>\n<partner-banner util-module-path=\"elements\/partner\" class=\"spacer-large\" min-height=\"600\" fluid=\"\" outstream=\"\" momentum=\"\"\/>\n<p>A gallant dive from <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/baseball\/mlb\/teams\/kansas-city-royals\/231\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kansas City Royals<\/a> third baseman Maikel Garcia to deflect the ball. An instinctive Gold Glove performer like Bobby Witt, Jr. to scoop up the ball and fire a laser to second base.<\/p>\n<p>A nifty turn from Jonathan India. A balletic stretch from first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino.<\/p>\n<p>And finally, a lumbering baserunner in Rhys Hoskins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"related-link\"><span class=\"exclude-from-newsgate\"><strong style=\"margin-right:3px\">MLB POWER RANKINGS: <\/strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/mlb\/2026\/04\/06\/mlb-power-rankings-pirates-konnor-griffin-standings\/89479257007\/\" rel=\"noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Top prospect&#8217;s debut has this team surging<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><media-gallery-promo asset-id=\"89429504007\" class=\"column ten-column no-gutter spacer-large\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Add it all up, and, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SlangsOnSports\/status\/2041332246200619203\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">according to the Elias Sports Bureau<\/a>, it&#8217;s the first groundball double play where every infielder touched the ball since <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/MON\/MON199508240.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Aug. 24, 1995<\/a>, when the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/baseball\/mlb\/teams\/san-francisco-giants\/250\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">San Francisco Giants<\/a>&#8216; Matt Williams, Royce Clayton, Robby Thompson and Mark Carreon pulled off the feat against the Montreal Expos&#8217; Mike Lansing.<\/p>\n<p>The rare twin killing in the bottom of the fourth inning played a key role in the Royals&#8217; <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/baseball\/mlb\/summary\/2941261\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">4-2<\/a> victory over the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/baseball\/mlb\/teams\/cleveland-guardians\/229\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Cleveland Guardians<\/a>. Starter Michael Wacha completed seven innings on 102 pitches \u2014 an outcome certainly boosted when he got two outs on a game of infield hot potato.<\/p>\n<p>With the win, the Royals improved to 5-5 while the Guardians fell to 6-5. The two teams&#8217; three-game series is a matchup of the early leaders in the AL Central.<\/p>\n<partner-banner util-module-path=\"elements\/partner\" fluid=\"\" bottom=\"\" lazy=\"\" class=\"spacer-large\" min-height=\"390\" outstream=\"\"\/><lit-timestamp class=\"column ten-column no-gutter spacer-small\" slot=\"timestamp\" publishdate=\"2026-04-07 03:39:20.334407787 +0000 UTC\" updatedate=\"2026-04-07 03:40:14.630055124 +0000 UTC\"\/><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.usatoday.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who will win the AL Central? Early season picks and predictions Early storylines in the AL Central are emerging, with Bob Nightengale and Steve Gardner breaking down the division favorites. The first 5-6-4-3 double play since 1995 required almost optimal conditions to transpire. A gallant dive from Kansas City Royals third baseman Maikel Garcia to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2362119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[351169,91466,22036,347504,313221,354075,366762,458851,22578,323178,313841,39514,22304,43627,354074,313842,309642,311237,25866,22773,325433,21738,239343,239347,265640,23759,407332,435839,27155,319706,22505,319717,21848,42570,319707,239344,345185,102808,350094,351170],"class_list":["post-2362118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-bobby","tag-bobby-witt-jr","tag-city","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-garcia","tag-guardians","tag-hoskins","tag-india","tag-jonathan","tag-jonathan-india","tag-jr","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-maikel","tag-maikel-garcia","tag-michael","tag-michael-wacha","tag-mlb","tag-national","tag-national-sports","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-positive","tag-pasquantino","tag-positive","tag-rhys","tag-rhys-hoskins","tag-royals","tag-scores","tag-sport","tag-sport-scores-u0026-statistics","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-statistics","tag-u0026","tag-vinnie","tag-vinnie-pasquantino","tag-wacha","tag-witt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Kansas-City-Royals-pull-off-rare-double-play-not-seen-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2362118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2362120,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362118\/revisions\/2362120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2362119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2362118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2362118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2362118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}