When you watch a baseball team day in and day out, you begin to notice the little things that each player does that sets them apart from others. Some are fairly obvious: Orlando Hernández’s leg kick spawned an Adidas commercial alongside David Cone and Luis Sojo in the late 90s. Others are more subtle, such as Andy Pettitte’s intense stare. And every once in a while, it becomes iconic — every fan who grew up in the early 2000s knew Ichiro Suzuki’s pre-at-bat routine like the back of their hands.
As I’ve been watching the Yankees over the first seven weeks of the season, I kept noticing a small quirk in how shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa fields the position: he always seemed to me to be backhanding the ball whenever the ball was hit to his right, regardless of whether or not he had the time to get in front of the ball and field it straight up.