Blue Jays prospect dramatically steals home in extra innings to win game

Those in attendance at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium for the Double-A baseball game between the Richmond Flying Squirrels and host New Hampshire Fisher Cats on Saturday night saw quite the magical ending.

With the score knotted at four in the bottom of the 10th inning, Toronto Blue Jays prospect Santiago Espinal was standing at third base with left-handed pitcher Sam Moll on the mound for the Flying Squirrels.

Espinal’s side was down to their last out of the inning when he saw an opportunity and pounced on it. While Moll had his back to Espinal before a 2-2 pitch, the Fisher Cats’ second baseman took off towards home.

Moll — blind to what was going on behind him — didn’t even get the opportunity to throw the ball before Espinal swiped the bag to win the contest in epic fashion.

You have the respect the stones on the 24-year-old from the Dominican Republic because baseball games simply don’t end like this. Stealing home is an uncommon event in today’s game, doing so to extra innings even more so.

While we don’t know the minor league numbers, a walk-off steal of home has only happened 35 times in MLB history, according to baseballmanac.com. Of those, only six have occurred since 1970 with the most recent successfully pulled off by Cleveland’s Marquis Grissom to defeat the Baltimore Orioles in 1997.

Originally drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 10th round of the 2016 MLB June Amateur Draft, Espinal was acquired by Toronto in the Steve Pearce trade last season.

MLB Pipeline has him as the 28th-ranked prospect in Toronto’s system.

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