Introduction
Baseball has a way of doing weird things sometimes. Over the course of this MLB season, we have already seen many incredible feats before we head into the All-Star break. From Shohei Ohtani showing off his 2-way capabilities to Jacob DeGrom pitching a near sub-1.00 ERA (Earned Run Average) to Fernando Tatis Jr. and Vladmir Guerrero Jr.'s power hitting, there's plenty of excitement to go around the league.
However, there would also be those rare moments where the most unlikely person steps up and be the hero. This happened on July 8, 2021 when the San Diego Padres and the Washington Nationals squared off in Petco Park.
The Setting
On the Padres' side, Yu Darvish took the mound as the starting pitcher. His performance throughout this season has been very strong. To this point, he had a 2.65 ERA, a 0.95 WHIP (Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched), and an opponent .198 batting average. However, the Nationals offense missed the memo and rocked Darvish hard early.
San Diego Padres pitcher Yu Darvish.
In the first inning, the Nationals took an early 3-0 lead. While Darvish was able to throw a scoreless 2nd inning, the Nationals would score another 3 runs in the 3rd. The Padres pulled Darvish out early as he finished his day with a statline of 3 innings pitched, 6 earned runs, and 8 hits.
Meanwhile, three time Cy Young Award winner "Mad Max" Scherzer took the mound for the Nationals. While at the age of 36, Scherzer has had a terrific season. Up until this game, he had a 2.10 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, and .179 opponent batting average. For the first 3 innings, he looked incredibly sharp, being able to paint the outside corner and striking out 5 Padres in the process.
Washington Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer, a madlad who pitched with a black eye one time and with a broken nose in another game.
With Darvish out of the game, Padres reliever Daniel Camarena took the mound to start the 4th inning only to allow a 2-run homerun to Trea Turner. The Nationals headed to the bottom of the 4th with a 8-0 lead with seemingly all of the momentum on their side. However, the Padres began to steal some of it back.
Fernando Tatis Jr. led off the bottom of the 4th with a solo HR for his 28th HR for the season. Scherzer struck Jake Croneworth out, but subsequently struggled with his command as he hit Manny Machado, allowed a single to Trent Grisham, and hit Eric Hosmer. Bases loaded. He walked Will Myers on a full count forcing in a run. 8-2 Nationals. After striking out Victor Caratini, all Scherzer had to do is face Daniel Camarena and get the last out. As pitchers extremely rarely turn out to be good batters, this would presumably be an easy out.
First pitch, Camarena took a fastball for strike one. Second pitch, he took a piece of Scherzer's fastball for a foul. 0-2 count, just one more for a strikeout. Scherzer threw an out-of-the-zone changeup to get Camarena to chase, but he didn't bite. 1-2 count. Momentum, however, was still on Scherzer's side as he could afford to throw a few more pitches out of the zone to get Camarena to chase.
But first, let's recap Daniel Camarena's career a bit.
Who's Daniel Camarena?
Daniel Camarena is a pitcher who was drafted by the New York Yankees in the 20th round of the 2011 MLB draft. His baseball career has been rather underwhelming as he spent the vast majority of it in the minors. If you check out his minor league stats, they are not something you would like to see from a pitcher. Camarena had a high 4.26 ERA and 1.275 WHIP with a low 3.05 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He did get promoted to the Yankees' 40-man roster in 2019, but never appeared in a game and went back down to AAA.
Daniel Camarena's minor league stats. (Source)
Don't expect anything better from his batting either. In the minor leagues, Camarena had a career .189 average, .207 OBP, and .179 SLG. In his 28 minor league at bats, he struck out 13 times for a near 50% SO rate.
In 2020, Camarena found a new home with the San Diego Padres though he didn't play a single game due to COVID. In 2021, he pitched decently in AAA that the Padres added him to their taxi squad on June 18 and then, the active roster the day after. His MLB debut was unspectacular as he allowed 3 earned runs in 2.2 innings against the Cincinnati Reds. And of course, he allowed another 2 earned runs against the Nationals after he took over for Darvish.
And Then, The Magic Happened
Fast forward back to Scherzer vs. Camarena. 1-2 count. All Scherzer needed to do was throw one more strike to get the last out and get out of a jam. That was likely considering Camarena's near 50% strikeout rate in the minors. Scherzer wound up and unleashed a 96 mph heater down and in, outside of the strikezone. And then, this happened:
Video is timestamped.
Camarena pulled off the improbable as a bombastic 2-out grand slam landed in the 10th row in deep right cut the Nationals' lead from 8-2 to 8-6. The last time a relief pitcher hit a grand slam was Don Robinson all the way back in 1985 and the last time I was this hyped for a pitcher hitting a home run was when Bartolo Colon hit a 2-run homer back in 2016. The Padres would eventually score another 3 runs to beat the Nationals 9-8. Had Camarena not that grand slam, who knows if the Padres would have pulled a comeback.
Baseball does weird things sometimes.
