In almost a thousand games he played over thirteen major league seasons as a receiver, Baudilio Díaz lived one of his best days behind the plate with the Reds, on Friday June 27, 1986, in a game held at the Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, who won 7 runs by 6 in twelve innings the San Francisco Giants visitors.
That night, Díaz became the only catcher in MLB history to have burst four times in an attempt to rob the same runner in a game. The victim was Robby Thompson, the player who has experienced the worst day around the pads since playing major league ball.
Baudilio’s rifle precision display began in the top of the fourth inning, after the Giants’ waiter and second batter Thompson was balloon-dominated to the right and towed the tie to a sacrifice balloon in the third. act. On his third visit to the plate, with one out on the board and his team up 5-for-1, he hit a line hit to short ground from the center and immediately after he was removed with a shot from Díaz to shortstop David Concepción’s glove.
In the sixth, with two outs, Thompson singled Jose Uribe to put the slate 6-2 and he was captured again in an attempted robbery, by the Díaz-Concepción combination.
In the ninth they “put the hooks on” again in the second half. With the board equalized 6-6, she started the run with a single to the center. She tried to swindle second, but Diaz threw the waiter’s glove, Ron Oester, in time to end the threat.
In the eleventh inning, with two outs, he struck out swinging, but was saved in the first by wild send that Diaz could not control. Then the reliever, John Franco, pitched at first and was put out from pitcher to starter to waiter.
The box score of the game records four outs stealing from Thompson, in which Díaz forms a battery with pitchers Bill Gullickson, Carl Willis, Ron Robinson, and Franco, which represents the MLB record.
With Mike Aldrette’s sacrifice balloon in the twelfth inning, Chili Davis scored the hairline that gave the Giants a 7-6 victory.
Díaz tied 4-2 with a couple of RBIs and an error, and Concepción rang three times in six trips and was rubberized once, by the defeated.
In his thirteen seasons with the Red Sox (1977), Indios (1978-81), Phillies (1982-85) and Reds (1985-89), Diaz played 965 catching games. Of 1,043 runners who defrauded while behind the plate, 686 arrived safely and 357 were captured, for 34 percent efficiency.
After 31 years of his last game, the remembered Mirandino player who tragically passed away on November 23, 1990, at the age of 37, is the Venezuelan catcher with the highest number of outs stealing. Ramón Hernández (346) and Henry Blanco (269) continue on the historical list.
