PHOENIX —
Apparent ease is the watermark of greatness.
And in the mere act of flinging a baseball across his body to his left while his body continued to go right and having the ball go exactly here he wanted it to some 150 feet away, Manny Machado on Friday night seemed to exert all the effort of a shrug.
The double-denying out in the eighth inning of a 2-1 victory was the best of a number of plays he has already made at third base in his 15 games with the Padres and arguably among the best plays a third baseman will make in the lifetime of anyone who saw it happen.