ANAHEIM — As Jo Adell raced toward the right field foul pole, an entire stadium full of fans held their breath. Could he do it again? Or were the Angels about to suffer a ninth-inning dagger?
The Angels right fielder then flung himself over the short fence down the line, and for a moment he disappeared.
Then he rose, holding his glove in the air with the ball firmly inside, and the crowd erupted. That catch alone would have been a career-defining highlight.
Except on this night, Adell had already done it two other times.
His three robbed homers made him the unequivocal star of the Angels’ tense, 1-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Saturday night.
The 44,084 fans in the ballpark will have a story to tell for decades, that they saw the night that someone robbed three homers in the same game. Records for such things are hard to come by, but it’s likely a first in major league history.
Torii Hunter, a defensive whiz who now works as an Angels special assistant and who happened to be in the dugout, was succinct in his praise for the performance.
“It was amazing, man,” Hunter said. “It was probably the greatest defensive game I’ve ever seen.”
He was particularly in awe of the capper.
“It was like from a movie scene,” Hunter said. “It’s as if the music was playing and then he caught the ball and then when he went down with it and we didn’t see him anymore, the music paused. And then everybody paused, and he came up and said, ‘Yeah!’ And everybody started cheering, and I almost blacked out.”
Adell soaked in every moment of the fans’ adoration throughout the night, showing his excitement with each catch.
“That was crazy, man,” Adell said. “After the first one, we were pretty fired up out there, and then got the second one, which looked identical to the first one, and I was like, ‘Wow, like my routes are on point tonight.’ And then the third one was just, top of the ninth, getting it done. So crazy.”
The magical night began in the first inning, when Mariners’ slugger Cal Raleigh – he of the 60 homers in 2025 – blasted one. Adell drifted back, under control, and he leapt and snagged the ball a couple feet above the top of the fence.
In the eighth inning, Mariners’ first baseman Josh Naylor hit an almost identical drive. Adell got back to the fence and pulled that one down. As he pumped his fist, the ballpark roared.
And then in the ninth, with the Angels (4-5) still clinging to that one-run lead, Seattle shortstop J.P. Crawford yanked one down the line. This time Adell had to run more than 90 feet. The ball stuck in his glove just before he went over the wall. He had run to the same spot for a ball in the 10th inning of Friday’s loss, but that was just out of his reach and hit the wall for a triple.
“I think step one is just getting to the spot,” Adell said. “The ball stayed high enough where I could get there and kind of looked similar a little bit to the ball yesterday. But my positioning was a little bit better, and just got there and was able to watch it fall over and ended up in somebody’s lap. I don’t know who, but it was a softer landing than I thought it would be. Kind of crazy.”
The Mariners asked for umpires to review the third one, and they confirmed it.
It was the 10th home run robbery of Adell’s career, with three in one night, vaulting him into a tie with Kyle Tucker for the most in the majors since 2020, when Adell broke into the majors.
Angels fans certainly remember Adell knocking a ball over the fence in Texas during his rookie season, for a rare four-base error. For a while, that was the enduring image that illustrated his problems in the outfield. He worked with Hunter and turned himself into a capable right fielder. In 2024, he was a Gold Glove finalist.
“For the last three years, he wanted to be better defensively,” Hunter said. “He actually called it out three years ago, and he’s just been working. The work ethic that he’s put in, it shows on the field, on one of the biggest stages in the big leagues. He’s been putting in work for years and, man, he looks really good out there. I was so excited, jumping up and down, that I almost passed out. I’m 50, I can’t be having that kind of pressure on my heart.”
Adell, 26, said he feels good about the results of his work.
“Obviously, defense was something that I struggled with when I first came up,” he said. “Just finding ways to improve and get better and find a way to learn. At the end of the day, I think defense is one of those things where it’s just about trying to get the job done, doing what we can to try to win. Tonight we had a tight one. These last two games have been tight. They’ve come to one run and, just those plays, sometimes when you can have the opportunity, you just try to go and make it happen. Very happy about it.”
The beneficiary of Adell’s first catch was starter Jack Kochanowicz, who worked 5⅔ innings, with seven strikeouts. Left-hander Joey Lucchesi, right-hander Chase Silseth, right-hander Sam Bachman, left-hander Drew Pomeranz and right-hander Jordan Romano handled the rest of the game, each clinging to the lead they had since Zach Neto’s first-inning homer.
Afterward, when reporters were talking to Kochanowicz while waiting for Adell, he acknowledged that his strong start had been overshadowed.
“You guys shouldn’t be over here talking to me, you should definitely be over there,” Kochanowicz said, motioning to Adell’s locker. “I’ve never seen anything like that personally. I’ve never even seen a guy rob two homers in a game, so three times is, is honestly hard to believe. Hat’s off to Jo. He’s looking great out there so far.”