San Diego Padres Notch Fourth Steal Of Home This Season

Stealing home has become almost as rare as seeing a unicorn, but the San Diego Padres are swiping the plate at a high rate in 2016.

Heading into play on Thursday, the San Diego Padres are 15 games under .500 and stand 15.5 games out of first place in the National League West. Sellers at the trade deadline, sending away Drew Pomeranz, Andrew Cashner, Melvin Upton, and Matt Kemp, among others, San Diego is already in waiting for next year mode.

But despite the team’s woeful won-loss record, the Padres have injected a little fun into their season, using what for all intents and purposes has become a dead art in baseball: stealing home. San Diego has done so four times in 2016, and currently ranks third overall in the big leagues in stolen bases with 99 as a team.

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“Almost any of the baserunning metrics you look at, we’re at or near the top,” manager Andy Green said after Wednesday’s win over Pittsburgh. “That’s the type of team we are. We’re going to be aggressive anytime we feel we can take an extra base.”

Second year center fielder and leadoff man

notched the team’s fourth theft of the plate this season, and his second, in the eighth inning with Pirates reliever

on the mound. It was not a straight steal of home, but counts nonetheless.

“Bastardo is a good pitcher, but I noticed when he was warming up that he was turning his back to the plate, and I thought maybe I’d have a chance,” Jankowski said. “Once you take off, though, there is no safety net. You’re either a hero or a zero. Fortunately, I was a hero.”

Jankowski, who is seventh in MLB with 25 steals on the year, also stole home in a game against the Milwaukee Brewers on August 1st. He is one of three Padres to do so this season, joining the now-departed Upton and all-star first baseman Wil Myers.

Stealing home has become such a rare occurrence that finding accurate data tracking it is near-impossible. While players in the dead-ball era like Ty Cobb, who stole home 54 times in his career, utilized the play fairly frequently, it has basically become extinct today. Rod Carew stole home seven times in 1969 as a member of the Minnesota Twins, but that is a huge exception to the rule in the modern game.

The 1999 Padres are the least team to reach four steals of home, in a season in which the team actually totaled five.

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Other players that have successfully swiped home this season include Jacoby Ellsbury of the New York Yankees and Trea Turner of the Washington Nationals, both of which, like Upton’s, were straight steals.