It might not be the rarest event in baseball.
But it sure feels like it.
On Tuesday night Washington Nationals outfielder James Wood hit an inside-the-park grand slam against the New York Mets, powering the Nationals to a 9-6 win over their NL East rivals. While there have been more than 200 such grand slams in MLB history, Wood’s was just the 26th such grand slam since the start of MLB’s Division Era in 1969.
Wood came to the plate with the bases loaded in the bottom of the second inning, with the Nationals trailing 5-0. Mets starting pitcher Nolan McLean left a sweeper over the heart of the plate, and Wood rocketed a deep fly ball to left-center field.
Left fielder Nick Morabito made a leaping attempt at the wall, but the ball caromed first off his glove and then the wall, rolling away from him and center fielder Tyrone Taylor. As Taylor checked to see if Morabito had completed the catch, the ball settled in center field, and Wood continued to race around the bases:
After pointing at the ball in the outfield, Morabito raced over to center field himself to get the ball back into the infield. But by then it was too late, as Wood’s head-first slide into home beat the relay to the catcher, and the Nationals had pulled to within one run of the Mets.
For those wondering, Wood needed little more than 15 second to make it all the way around the bases:
It was also the first grand slam of his young MLB career.
“I was hype,” Wood said after the game. “Everyone was hype. It was fun. Everyone was celebrating.”
“He hit it pretty hard,” Morabito said. “I went back and just missed it. It hit the palm of my hand. I should have had it.”
After the ball ricocheted off Morabito’s glove, that’s when Wood knew he had a chance for something special.
“When I saw that, I knew I was full-on sprint home,” Wood said. “That’s probably why my eyes got big there.”
Washington tacked on three runs in the third, and did not look back en route to their 9-6 victory.
