Three Up, Three Down: The MLB hot/cold report

It's time to shine the spotlight on some lovely defense. We're going to start in Houston, where the Astros suffered a rare loss on Monday night. However, it took an amazing feat of defensive prowess to do it, and Randal Grichuk was up to the task.

With two runners on and Houston down three, George Springer came up to bat in the bottom of the ninth. He proceeded to sky one to right field for what seemed like it was going to be a game-tying home run and yet another moment of excellence for the Astros and their historically good offense.

Instead, Grichuk took flight and kept the ball from landing in the seats. You really need to see it in order to believe it because it's officially in the running for catch of the year.

The Boston "Bullpen Cop" makes his return

Meanwhile in Boston, we don't have a defensive highlight; instead we have an "almost" highlight and the return of an old favorite in the annals of recent Red Sox playoff history. On Tuesday night, Mookie Betts hit a fly ball that was surely destined to land in the bullpen in right field.

Sure enough, it realized its destiny and landed in the bullpen but not before Michael Hermosillo made a valiant effort to bring it back. Instead, he went up and over the fence and ended up coming back into the field of play empty-handed.

We knew this was the case because Bullpen Cop was there to confirm the dinger for all of the fans at Fenway Park. That's right: Good ol' Bullpen Cop made his return in a moment that was nearly identical to the iconic dinger that David Ortiz hit during the 2013 ALCS. Deja vu is fun, isn't it?

Minor's mistake turns into a miracle

Over in Texas on Wednesday night, Mike Minor was in the process of having one of the best starts of his career. However, just after he lost the perfect game he was working on, he made a bigger mistake and left a meatball over the plate for Hunter Renfroe to smash.

As you can see in the video, Minor thought it was gone from the second Renfroe made contact with it. Fortunately for the Rangers and Minor, Delino DeShields did not give up on it and decided that it was time to rob Renfroe of a homer.

So yeah, you could say that it's already been an excellent week for defense.

Three Down

Don't steal a base on Sergio Romo's watch

About three weeks ago, the Rays played the Nationals in Washington and lost that game 11-2. When it was 9-2, Michael Taylor stole a base while Sergio Romo was pitching. Because this is baseball in 2018, Romo took grave offense to the move and chose to keep such a blatant sign of disrespect tucked away in his memory bank for his next encounter.

That encounter came this past Tuesday when the Rays were in the process of shutting out the Nats for the second day in a row. The final batter was Taylor, and Romo struck him out to end the game. Great! We then veered into ridiculousness when Romo proceeded to yell at Taylor, showing that he did not forget about the "incident" from nearly an entire month ago.

The benches cleared, and eventually the Nationals left town with two losses and one of the dumbest bench-clearing moments that you'll see this season. It isn't quite on the level of Hunter Strickland waiting years for the right opportunity to exact revenge on Bryce Harper, but it's in the neighborhood. I guess we should just be glad Romo didn't bean Taylor since we all know that giving your opponent a free base is the best way to get revenge in a game where getting on base is the objective, right?

Archie Bradley gets into a stinky situation

It's always nice whenever you get to hear pro athletes on podcasts because they're normally encouraged to just be themselves and share stories that they'd otherwise keep to themselves if they had 10-20 mics in their faces. With that being said, Archie Bradley took it to a whole new level with the story he revealed on a podcast for Yahoo Sports.

In the podcast, Bradley told the story about how he once pitched a game this season with his pants full of poop. Yes, he soiled his pants before a "relief" outing. The kicker for this story is that Bradley still went out and pitched a good inning, which he described in the podcast as a "clean inning."

That may have been a "clean inning" on the scoreboard, but it was dirty on the mound. All jokes aside, it was actually refreshing to hear him share that story (as nasty as it was) because it's another reminder that even though these guys are getting paid handsomely to play a children's game, they're still just as human as you and I are and prone to having incredibly embarrassing moments. It's a disgusting story, but it was still endearing of him to share it with us.

Royals scrape absolute bottom of the barrel for potential talent

Despite going undrafted in the recent MLB Draft, Oregon State pitcher and convicted child molester Luke Heimlich has somehow managed to garner interest from a major league team despite his conviction. That team ended up being the Kansas City Royals, as K.C. is reportedly considering giving the guy a shot in the organization.

If you're wondering, "Why in the world would a professional baseball team even consider bringing in a man who was convicted of molesting a child? join the club. Royals GM Dayton Moore tried to justify the interest by saying that the Royals are a club that gives people "second and third chances."

There are times where giving someone another chance is justified. I can't say with any amount of confidence that giving a convicted child molester who — despite pleading guilty — hasn't expressed any sort of remorse for his actions and has in fact denied his involvement should. It would be tough to give him a chance even if he expressed remorse but now? There's no way I could do it, but I suppose that some baseball executives out there are so enticed by a hard-throwing pitcher that they're willing to overlook stuff like that.

This isn't the first controversy around Moore and the clubhouse culture. In 2017 and 2018, he warned players about the dangers of pornography.