Randy Arozarena steals home in Game 1 ALDS

Randy Arozarena, who put up one of the greatest postseason performances in MLB history last year, is back in form.

After hitting his eleventh postseason homerun of his young career earlier in the game, Randy Arozarena wow’d the baseball world with a steal of home against the Red Sox in Game 1 of the 2021 ALDS.

It was an absolutely incredible call, full of passion and surprise, from Joe Davis, who was calling a decent game alongside John Smoltz, but it was also not the only one worth your time!

Here’s Andy Freed’s call from Rays Radio, coining an excellent new nickname for Randy as “Señor Octubre”:

Which is not unlike the Red Sox’s WEEI call, which called Randy “Mr. October” as well:

Also worthwhile: ESPN’s Dan Shulman call, as the friend of the site begins yelling which is a rare reaction from his style of calling:

And maybe best of all was the rolling r’s from Fox Deportes, which broke out the British Accent earlier in the night for Randy’s homerun:

Arozarena’s steal of home was the first in the playoffs since 2016, when Javy Baez pulled one off in Game 1 of the NLCS, and the first “straight” steal of home since Jackie Robinson stole home against Yogi Berra in 1955!?!

Here were the postgame comments on the legendary play from Randy Arozarena and opposing manager Alex Cora:

“I noticed that the pitcher wasn’t really watching for me or covering for me,” Arozarena said. “I saw the third baseman (Rafael Devers) was pretty far away in respect to where I was at. I was looking over to (third base coach Rodney) Linares, telling him, ‘Hey, I’m going to go. I’m going to go.’ Peeked over and saw (manager Kevin) Cash give him the green light as well. So that’s when I decided to take off.”

Red Sox manager Alex Cora called it “an amazing baseball play.”

Arozarena “was playing with him the whole at-bat, right?” Cora said. “We were close to him and then he got back to the bag, and then in that one he kind of timed him perfectly and he took off. It caught everybody by surprise.”

[Boston Red Sox ‘caught by surprise’ when Randy Arozarena stole home against Josh Taylor | Mass Live]

As well as some added context from Rays manager Kevin Cash:

“He has asked me all season long: ‘Verde, verde, verde, green light, green light.’ We’ve tried to manage that,” Cash said. “He finally got his 20th (stolen base) in New York in the last series. But he got the green light.”

[October is here, and Randy Arozarena is ready to own it once again | TB Times]

It was an incredible performance from Señor Octubre, and if we learned anything from last year, he’s just getting started.