By the time Jo Adell tumbled into the front row of seats in the right-field corner on Saturday night, the sell-out crowd at Angel Stadium had already stopped breathing twice. The third time, they simply lost their minds.
Adell robbed three home runs in a single game, a performance believed to be the first of its kind in baseball history, as the Los Angeles Angels held on to beat the Seattle Mariners 1-0. Zach Neto’s 443-foot leadoff homer off Emerson Hancock in the first inning was the game’s only run. Adell made sure it stayed that way.
Adell’s night catch by catch
The first robbery came in the opening inning. Cal Raleigh, one of the game’s premier power hitters, drove a slider from starter Jack Kochanowicz toward the right-field wall. The ball left the bat at 104.7 mph with a launch angle of 28 degrees. Adell tracked it, leaped above the yellow line and pulled it back. It would have been a home run in 20 other ballparks, including Seattle’s T-Mobile Park.
The second came in the eighth with the game still on the line. Josh Naylor sent a ball to nearly the same spot on an 0-1 slider from reliever Sam Bachman. Exit velocity: 98 mph, a projected home run in 10 other parks. Adell’s route was almost identical to the first catch. He timed it and took it away cleanly.
The third was something else entirely.
J.P. Crawford led off the ninth and drove a 2-1 slider from closer Jordan Romano toward the right-field corner. Adell sprinted, leaped and caught the ball as his legs hit the wall. His momentum carried him over and into the first row of seats, where he landed in a stranger’s lap before lifting his glove to show the umpires he had held on. A replay review confirmed the out. Romano then retired the final two batters to close out the win.
What Torii Hunter saw
Torii Hunter has nine Gold Gloves. He spent years making catches that seemed impossible. When asked what he thought of what Adell did Saturday night, Hunter said it was the greatest defensive game he had ever seen.
Hunter, now a special assistant with the Angels, has worked closely with Adell on his outfield defense over the past several years. He watched the third catch from the bench and described it afterward as feeling like a movie scene, with Adell disappearing over the wall before reappearing with his glove raised.
Adell credited Hunter’s influence for reshaping how he approaches the outfield. The mindset Hunter instilled was built around aggression rather than hesitation, a principle Adell said changed everything about how he reads the ball off the bat.
Adell’s defensive transformation
The performance was not always this way. Adell spent several early seasons in the majors struggling in the field before turning himself into a Gold Glove finalist in 2024. According to Inside Edge, he now has 10 home run robberies since 2020, tied with Kyle Tucker of the Dodgers for the most in the majors over that span. The outfield leader for all of last season was four, shared by Jacob Young of the Nationals and Fernando Tatis Jr. of the Padres.
Adell finished the game having touched more would-be home runs than runs actually crossed the plate. Kochanowicz threw 5 2/3 strong innings, and a parade of six Angels pitchers held Seattle scoreless. Left fielder Josh Lowe added a diving catch in the fourth and second baseman Ozwald Peraza made a diving stop to kill a fifth-inning threat.
But Saturday night belonged entirely to one player, and everyone at Angel Stadium knew it from the first inning on.