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It’s hard to believe that MLB baseball fans have witnessed a league first in the year 2015. However, that’s exactly what happened on May 9 when the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals 7-5 at PNC Park and pulled off the first-ever 4-5-4 triple play in MLB history. Fans don’t often get to see triple plays during the ball season, especially one of such historical significance.

The play came early in the game as it took place in the top of the second inning. St Louis had runners on second and third base with nobody out. Yadier Molina was up at bat and he lined the ball closer to second base. Pittsburgh’s second baseman Neil Walker caught the ball for one out while the Cardinals’ Jason Heyward, who was standing on second base, took off for third. Instead of stepping on second base to get Heyward out he threw the ball to third baseman Jung Ho Kang to nail the base runner Jhonny Peralta there.

Kang then threw the ball back to Walker at second base to record Heyward as the third out on the same play. Walker said afterwards that if he had stepped on second base they wouldn’t have been able to get the runner on third out. He said since he was facing third he felt it was a better option to throw to Kang, and he was proved to be right. Oddly enough, the second to third and back to second triple play has never been seen before in the Majors.

Pirates’ manager Clint Hurdle said the dugout helped out as the players were yelling at Kang during the play to throw the ball back to Walker. Hurdle remarked, “Everybody in was yelling at him. In multiple languages.” Walker said Kang might of thought he had stepped on second base to get Heyward out, but once he heard the yells from his teammates he threw it back to second since Heyward was taking his time at getting back to the base.

Both Heyward and Peralta took off when Molina made contact with the ball as it looked like it was going to go over Walker’s head for a sure base hit. However, Walker’s fine catch and quick thinking ended the inning in just a matter of seconds. Heyward said he was at fault for the play, but he was just trying to exhibit some aggressive base running. The game was 0-0 at the time and the Pirates went on to score three runs in their half of the second inning on their way to the win. The last time Pittsburgh recorded a triple play was in 2014 while the last time St. Louis had hit into one was back in 2003.