Both Hanwha and Samsung Have Had One This Year — There Have Been Only 88 Triple Plays Since 1982

It usually takes three or four pitches to record one out.

On August 1 in Suwon, one ball produced three outs. A triple play.

There have been only 88 such plays since 1982. What has to come together for one to happen?

Three-line summary
1. A triple play occurred in the August 1 Hanwha-KT game.
2. It was the 88th since 1982 and the second this year.
3. It is possible only with no outs and at least two runners on base.

Suwon, August 1, top of the fifth

It was the top of the fifth, with the Hanwha Eagles trailing the KT Wiz 4-7.

Lee Won-seok reached on a single to center, and Jonathan Peraza drew a walk to put runners on first and second with no outs. Han Ji-yoon came to the plate.

The count was 2 balls and no strikes. Han hit KT starter Bae Je-seong's third-pitch slider, but the ball went directly to third baseman Heo Kyeong-min.

From there, it happened in an instant. Heo fielded the ball and stepped on third base. Lee Won-seok, the runner on second, was out. He immediately threw to second baseman Kim Sang-su. Peraza, the runner on first, was out. Kim then threw to first, where first baseman Oh Yun-seok received it. Batter Han Ji-yoon was out as well.

One ball, three outs. The inning was over.

To record three outs, there first must be no outs

It may sound obvious, but that is the first condition. If even one out has already been recorded, there is no room to make three.

Second, there must be at least two runners on base. With the batter, there have to be three potential outs.

The third is the real hurdle. Those runners must be retired without having to chase them down and tag them.

Baseball has something called a force out. When a runner is forced forward by a runner behind him, he must advance to the next base. In that case, a fielder needs only to touch the base for the out. The ball does not have to touch the runner.

First base cannot be empty. The runner on second is not obligated to go to third, so he would have to be chased down and tagged. Time passes in the process, making it impossible to reach the third out.

That is why ground-ball triple plays effectively occur only with no outs and runners on first and second, or no outs and the bases loaded. Those situations themselves are not rare. What is rare is turning them into three outs.

5-4-3

In baseball scoring, defensive positions are assigned numbers: pitcher 1, catcher 2, first baseman 3, second baseman 4, third baseman 5, shortstop 6, and the outfielders 7, 8, and 9 from left field onward.

This triple play is recorded as 5-4-3: third baseman to second baseman, then second baseman to first baseman. It is the most common type of ground-ball triple play.

One detail stands out here: there was a throw to first base at the end.

If the batted ball had been caught in the air, the batter would already have been out at that moment. There would be no reason to throw to first. Retiring the batter on a throw to first means the ball was not caught on the fly. The three characters in the scoring notation even contain the nature of the batted ball.

Fly-ball triple plays are made in the opposite way

On a ground-ball triple play, runners can be retired even if they stay put, because they are in force situations with nowhere to retreat.

A fly-ball triple play, by contrast, requires the runners to run.

If a line drive goes directly into a fielder's glove, the batter is out on the spot. The runners have already taken off, expecting a hit. Once the fly ball is caught, they must retouch their original bases, but they do not have time to return the distance they have run. The fielder only needs to throw to the base.

That is why well-hit balls can be more dangerous. Runners take off with confidence.

The most extreme form is an unassisted triple play. One fielder records all three outs without help, and it has happened exactly once in the KBO. On June 13, 2007, in Daegu, KIA second baseman Son Ji-hwan caught a line drive by Samsung's Park Jin-man, stepped on second base, and then tagged Samsung's runner on first, Shim Jeong-su, who had advanced close to second. Three outs by himself.

How rare are 88?

This was the 88th in KBO history and the second of this season.

The first this year came on May 6 in Daegu, when Kiwoom's infield turned one. It came just after Samsung had created a no-out, bases-loaded opportunity, and the sequence was the same as this one: third baseman, second baseman, first baseman.

Before that, the previous one came on September 11, 2025, in the KIA-Lotte game in Gwangju. That means there had not been one for nearly eight months.

Eighty-eight in the 44 years since the league's 1982 launch works out to an average of two per year. This year had already reached that average in early August.

One thing stands out most: Samsung and Hanwha have each experienced one of this year's two triple plays.

This is not a play that happens because someone failed

After the game, OSEN reported that Hanwha manager Kim Kyung-moon said, “Who would have expected such a rare play to happen? That’s baseball.” Bae Je-seong, who threw the pitch, also told Star News that when Heo Kyeong-min made the play, he had thought only as far as two outs.

A triple play is not a scene that happens because someone did poorly. It happens only when there are no outs, at least two runners are on base, the ball happens to go directly at a fielder, and the infield does not lose even a beat.

The figure of 88 since 1982 is the number of times all those conditions have aligned at once.

Sources

The game sequence and scoring order refer to the reports above; the 2007 unassisted triple play refers to the Wikipedia record above.