La Stella, Crawford help Webb with 'sick' double play originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
SAN FRANCISCO -- Tommy La Stella had never played in a postseason game with Brandon Crawford before Friday night's 4-0 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers, but he didn't need much experience in big spots to know how to handle a hard shot up the middle in the fourth inning.
La Stella simply followed the same rule that so many other Giants second basemen have over the years.
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"Just get it anywhere near him and he'll do it," La Stella said.
La Stella and Crawford teamed up for a huge double play, one that brought back memories of the famous Joe Panik-Crawford turn against the Kansas City Royals in the 2014 World Series. Unlike Panik, La Stella didn't have to leave his feet, but he did have to travel quite a bit further to the opposite side of the bag.
La Stella glove-flipped the ball behind him as he headed for left field. Crawford snagged it with his own glove, and as he does better than anyone in the game, he deftly found the bag. His strong throw to first sealed the double play.
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"I think initially, I haven't watched it, but I think initially I broke to the bag and he went for the ball and then we kind of switched as I was much closer to it," La Stella said. "But he made that play. That's a really difficult read on his part to go for the ball and then to redirect his momentum to find the base on a high flip and then still turn it. It was pretty awesome."
That was a somewhat technical explanation. Logan Webb, the star of the night, put it in simpler terms.
"That was pretty sick," he said.
The two middle infielders contributed at the plate, too. La Stella reached in his first three plate appearances, seeing 16 Walker Buehler pitches as he drew a walk and then lined a pair of two-strike singles. Crawford capped the scoring with a solo homer to right-center, the second of his long postseason career.
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It was the glove-flip double play, though, that really had Oracle Park buzzing. La Stella credited Crawford for making the play look easy.
"I mean, he does it so frequently," he said. "At this point for him it's routine. For anybody else it would blow your mind, but he makes that play 10 times out of 10."
