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A professional pitcher needs a number of skills to be successful. Strength, endurance, patience, and focus are all important. But how about quick reflexes? Those are important too, and on Wednesday night a minor league pitcher showed everyone why. Ashur Tolliver, pitcher for the Bowie Baysox (the Baltimore Orioles Double-A affiliate), came in to relieve starter Chris Lee to begin the seventh inning of Bowie's game against the Reading Fightin Phils (the Philadelphia Phillies affiliate). Reading left fielder KC Serna led off, and before the announcer could even finish going over Tolliver's season stats, Serna had smashed a line drive directly at Tolliver. [ Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Baseball contest now ] Tolliver reacted incredibly quickly, with catlike reflexes, and extended his left arm to reach out and snatch the hard-hit ball from thin air. Of course, Tolliver is a lefty pitcher, and at the end of his left arm was his ungloved left pitching hand. That had just caught a screaming liner.  Tolliver appeared to be okay after his spectacular catch, shaking out his hand and wiping it on his pants, and acting like nothing exciting had happened at all. He stayed in the game and allowed a single before retiring the final two batters of the inning for a truly admirable outing.  Tolliver obviously has fantastic reflexes, and hopefully they'll continue to serve him in his career. And if playing it cool is an important pitcher skill, Tolliver definitely has that one down, too. More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports: - - - - - - - Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher Continue to Article

May 19, 2016 11:10:am EST

Welcome to The Walk Off, the nightly MLB recap from Big League Stew. Here we'll look at the top performers of the night, show you a must-see highlight and rundown the scoreboard. First, we start with a game you need to know about.   We've crossed the mid-point of May, and  the Philadelphia Phillies still aren't going away. That's obviously a very stunning development, because most people didn't see them holding relevance beyond the first week in April.  Even the Phillies would have to admit they didn't see this remarkable start coming. Not after they dove headfirst into a rebuilding project expected to take several years. Yet, after the Phillies 4-2 win against the Marlins on Wednesday , they're 24-17 almost exactly one-quarter of the way through the season, and they're only one-half game behind the Washington Nationals for first place in the NL East.  [ Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Baseball contest now ] This is why we play the games.  Continue to Article

May 19, 2016 1:51:am EST

The Baltimore Orioles have been successful despite simply average starting pitching from a group of names that wouldn't impress many. Tyler Wilson probably is the most unrecognizable, but his last effort was one of the best the Orioles have gotten from their staff recently. The 26-year-old takes the mound for this 10th career start looking to help Baltimore deal the visiting Seattle Mariners a fifth loss in six games Thursday night. Continue to Article

May 18, 2016 11:51:pm EST

Brewers 4, Cubs 2 Ben Zobrist broke up Chase Anderson's no-hit bid with a leadoff double in the eighth inning and Jason Hayward and Kris Bryant hit back-to-back homers in the ninth, but it was not enough to prevent the Chicago Cubs from falling 4-2 to the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park. Anderson was perfect through 5 1/3 innings, allowing his first runner of the day on a one-out walk to Miguel Montera. Continue to Article

May 17, 2016 11:47:pm EST