This is pretty cool. It’s not too often that we see a player steal home.
Jacoby Ellsbury studied Andy Pettitte’s slow windup. He took a few steps toward home. Then he took off.
The Red Sox speedster slid headfirst, stirred up a cloud of dirt and looked at plate umpire Gary Cederstrom. Safe. “The biggest thing is getting the courage to go, I guess. In that situation, bases loaded, you’ve got to make it,” Ellsbury said after a 4-1 win Sunday night gave the Red Sox their 10th straight win and a three-game sweep of the New York Yankees. “I was pretty confident that I could get in there.”
His first steal of home since before college came in a three-run fifth inning after New York’s Brett Gardner and Boston’s David Ortiz hit sacrifice flies in the third.
Ellsbury decided to run after watching the left-hander’s previous pitch. Batter J.D. Drew didn’t know that but, as a left-handed hitter, saw him running and sliding under Jorge Posada’s swipe.
So did Pettitte.
“Obviously, that’s frustrating,” Pettitte said. “I was in the windup. I should have been in the stretch. Jorgie told me to keep an eye on him. I saw him in the corner of my eye and tried to speed up my windup.”