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Didn't watch that much TV this September.  Don't even remember which game it was when we flicked it on and there it was, four years on.  Carlos Triunfel at shortstop in Safeco Field.  

Dr. D is a mammal like most of those reading this, and sadly enough, classical conditioning overmatches his higher brain functions like Felix Hernandez vs. Elvis Andrus.  He therefore expected, on a visceral level, to see a train wreck defensively.  Intellectually he had no reason to have any expectations in either direction.  Instinctively, though?  He pinched his eyebrows painfully and hoped he wouldn't see something embarrassing.  

Years of scouting reports had closed the books on this one.  Carlos Triunfel had been a minor league SS only in the sense that Garry Sheffield once was a minor league SS.  Dr. D reminds himself again and again and again to trust only his own eyes (and, admittedly, Gordon Gross' eyes), but his self-reprimands only go so far.  You come back to your instinctive reactions.  The world can't be crazy.

................

A ground ball went to second base.  The second baseman - who even remembers or cares whether it was Ackley - flipped over to Carlos Triunfel for the DP relay.

Triunfel's hands moved like Sugar Ray Leonard's, impossible even to follow except through slo-mo, and then the throw!  The ball took Justin Smoak backwards over the railing at first base.  He lost his cleats flipping over the rail.  Dr. D's eyes did one of those cartoon-character sproingy things.

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An inning or two later, a leisurely three-hop groundball went deep into the hole at short, the Brendan Ryan play.  All shortstops make 50% of the plays to their lefts; some shortstops make 15% of the plays to their rights and some, like Ryan, make 50%.  The 3-hop grounder in the hole is the ball that separates NOT major league SS's from minor league ones.  It is the ball that separates great major league SS's from okay ones.

Triunfel glided over effortlessly, picked the ball with Infield Practice body language, and ZZZZZZIIINNNNNNGED the ball over to Smoak, head-high, beating the runner by two steps.

We could add that as a 2B, Triunfel scampered around the infield like Pokey Reese, charging slow rollers and using that blurry-fast transfer to make close plays, um, not close.  We could add that on tag plays, and around the bag, Triunfel looked quite natural, fluid, and instinctive.  But that's anticlimactic.  This is a shortstop who can make the play in the hole.

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Two plays.  And four years' worth of bloggy scouting on Carlos Triunfel went up in a low roar and a flowering mushroom cloud.  Does anybody want to google the last four years' worth of blogging about this guy?

I s'pose that Triunfel had a jiggly midsection at age 19.  That would be our best guess here.  Where is Billy Beane when you need him ... oh yeah.  In the playoffs with seven rookies.

If you want to know why Dr. D battles so doggedly about who-cares issues like Jesus Montero's catching, why he doesn't let bloggers slide when they glibly inform us that Nick Franklin will or won't play shortstop, well, it's not because he's trying to be pugnacious.

For nine hundred years has Jack Zduriencik watched fielding.  His own counsel will he keep as to who can glove.  Note well that Montero is catching and Triunfel is shortst'ing -- and that Carlos Triunfel has just been moved up in the org line.  Let that fact stand at the top of your list, and us 'net rats' opinions, behind it.

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