Sal Frelick saves the day in LA.

ANGEL IN THE OUTFIELD AMIRIGHT???

Sweet sassy molassy what a catch! It looked like last night was going to be drama free with the Crew up 6-0 headed into the bottom of the 9th inning, but things unraveled quickly. 3 runs for the Angels, then all of a sudden they had two on with two outs and the tying run at the plate. Pat Murphy went from using his lowest leverage arm (Elieser Hernandez) to his closer in the span of 10 minutes.

Trevor McGill comes in trying to get the final out and Taylor Ward looked like he took him out for a game-tying 3-run bomb. Enter: Sal Frelick. His bobblehead was the all-fan giveaway on Saturday, and it featured him making a leaping catch at the wall:

Well life imitates art in this instance. Frelick insisted after the game that it wasn’t that great of a catch, he was positioned well and just had to time his leap. What you say, Sal. The Levering call on the Brewer Radio Network was fantastic as well:

My favorite part of both calls is that both BA and Levering had that, ‘wind knocked out of them’ tone with the crack of the bat. Everyone thought that thing was gone. Massive catch in a big moment. Other random notes from last night:

• Lost in all of the 9th inning drama is the continued leveling-up for Tobias Myers. 6.1 innings last night without giving up a run. 20.1 innings in the month of June with only 1 run given up. Is that good? Truth be told, I had never heard of a Tobias Myers before the season started. But right now it’s him and Colin Rea leading this rotation.
• Jackson Chourio is starting to have his Neo Matrix moment. Hit .167 in April, .222 in May, and now .285 with an OPS near .900 in June. And he had a little league home run last night! 14.7 seconds from home-to-home, fastest in MLB this season.
• Yeli CRUSHED career home run #200. If he hadn’t shattered his knee cap in September of 2019 he probably would have hit #300 last night. Ah well. To the moon:

There are plenty of nights where I’m not sure how this team wins, but they do. Need Fastball Freddy to get up off the deck and put a good start together tonight. I’m starting to get ‘special season’ vibes.

PS: News broke about Willie Mays passing away during the broadcast last night. 93 years old. 24-time All Star (there were two All Star games in some of those seasons), 2-time MVP, the definiton of a 5-tool player. Everyone who has followed baseball even moderately closely has seen a highlight of ‘The Catch’ in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series:

If you are someone who likes to rank all time baseball players, and Willie Mays isn’t in your Top 3 (minimum), then don’t even start your list. You could make a convincing case (and many have) that he’s the greatest player of all time. RIP.