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Minor leaguer pinwheels over outfield wall to rob a home run

There are some minor league outfielders doing work out there this week. This catch from Arkansas Travelers right fielder Zach Welz is phenomenal, insane, and hilarious all at the same time.

It was the bottom of the eighth inning in Wednesday’s game, and the Travelers had an 8-4 lead over the Tulsa Drillers. But Drillers first baseman Cody Bellinger wanted to change that. With a man on first, he, uh, drilled the ball to deep right field. Off the bat, Bellinger thought it was gone and he’d singlehandedly cut his team’s deficit by two.

That ball would have been a home run. It should have been a home run. Bellinger should feel robbed, becuase Zach Welz is a straight-up thief. He ran toward the outfield wall with his eye on the ball the entire time, jumped up, an was simultaneously rewarded and punished: he made the catch, but he ran right into the short outfield wall.

Zach Welz flips over to make a catch.
Zach Welz flips over to make a catch.

His jump was so high that instead of thwumping into the wall, he flipped over it, his legs pinwheeling in the air. If someone was staging a catch in a baseball comedy movie, that is exactly what it would look like.

MiLB
MiLB

Thankfully he was okay. He popped up behind the wall just like a gopher, his glove raised in triumph. The inning was over, and the Travelers would defeat the Drillers 8-4 an inning later.

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It’s a tough call, but I think this catch beats the fence flipping catch I posted on Monday. But both are insanely great. Are these wall scaling catches contagious? With two in one week, I think they might be.

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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher