Padres' Manny Machado let a pop-up drop in the infield for the smartest reason

Brilliant.

What looked like a routine pop-up to San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado on Saturday in Cincinnati turned into so much more.

This is the stage:

• Bottom of the fifth inning, no outs
• Spencer Steer batting
• Elly De La Cruz on first base

Steer popped one up on the left side. Machado drifted under it.

As a baserunner should do, De La Cruz ambled over to first base and stood there.

But then, Machado let the ball fall a foot to his left, intentionally.

He casually picked it up and tossed over to second for the force out to retire De La Cruz.

That took Elly's lightning speed off the basepaths.

Manny Machado gets Elly De La Cruz off the bases by letting the ball drop in the infield pic.twitter.com/rK85BPEvsB

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It's not an infield fly, because that requires runners on first and second.

It's not the first time it has been done, either. Retired second baseman Ian Kinsler pulled this off once or twice.

That doesn't make it less genius, though. There's nothing the Reds could've done to stop it, and it gave the Padres one less problem to worry about.

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