MLB All-Star Game: Jose Iglesias' dazzling defense not a typical sight for AL All-Stars

CINCINNATI -- Every player on the Detroit Tigers is used to seeing the eye-popping defensive plays that Jose Iglesias makes over and over again on a nightly basis. It's become so common that teammates, Tigers fans, and even Iglesias himself are pretty used to seeing them. But that wasn't the case for everyone else on the American League during the 2015 MLB All-Star Game on Tuesday night.

During batting practice, Mariners manager and former Tigers hitting coach Lloyd McClendon was doing his best to trip Iglesias up, defensively. Find some way to push Iglesias to a point where he couldn't make a play with such style and ease. It didn't work.

"That's a challenge that you're not going to win," Price said with a smile. "He's fun to watch. I enjoy watching him in BP when he fields ground balls. He does a lot of unique things with his glove and how he's able to throw balls. It's pretty cool."

In one such play, Iglesias made an off-balance flip under his arm across his lower left side, while moving toward left field/third base. Accurately. Without looking. And when the game started he translated that into the game. Alcides Escobar's time at shortstop wasn't memorable. After Iglesias entered the game, Manny Machado, also recently brought in at third, robbed a play from Iglesias. It was nice, but soon forgotten.

Then, Iglesias made the play in the eighth. A do-or-die situation, Iglesias moved towards third base at full speed, jumped, and turned toward first mid-air, one-hopping an accurate throw for the final out. Twitter lost it. But that was nothing compared to the reaction of the players. Insane. Unreal. Does he do that all the time? Jeteresque.

Pitchers in the bullpen were asking David Price about the play as if they'd come to a life-altering realization, but this was a daily thing to see for the Tigers.

"I'm used to it," Price said. "When he made that play everybody looks at me 'Does he do that all the time?' And I'm like, 'He makes that play 10 times out of 10.' (Yankees outfielder) Brett Gardner was standing right there, and he's like, 'He makes that play a lot.' And I was like, 'He made that play against you.' And he was like, 'Aw, that's right. It wasn't even close.' I was like, 'No, it wasn't close.' He was like, 'That's crazy.'"

Iglesias, asked about the play, if he surprised himself or if it's just something normal. There were a couple of shrugs before he described the play as "routine."

Getting to the response made it seem as if the decision on how to respond was more difficult than the play itself. And nothing surprises the young shortstop on a daily basis, despite wowing the crowd, and his fellow All-Star teammates. Plays like Tuesday night's that, for any Tigers player, was nothing new. Players asking J.D. Martinez the same thing pitchers were asking Price, received a similar response.

"Nah it was like whatever. Yeah, everyone was like impressed," Martinez said, "And I'm like, 'I've seen him make like 20 of those already. It's not a big deal. You should see the ones where he really gets to them when they're really tough.'"

Iglesias may not have started the game -- he came in during the sixth to pinch hit for Escobar and was 0-for-2 at the plate -- but when he finally got a ball, the only ball that he got hit to him of the night, Iglesias didn't fail to impress, wow, and stun everyone watching the game. But against the brighter lights of the All-Star stage, Iglesias didn't flinch, and making a play like that didn't feel any different for the All-Star shortstop.

"About the same," he said.

The concern -- if you can even call it that, though -- is that, because Iglesias is so nonchalant about it, and because fans and teammates see it so frequently, eventually the novelty of the plays that Iglesias makes will wear off. That, those impossible plays he makes look so routine, so carefree, so easy, will become seen as nothing special.

Thankfully, that novelty hasn't worn off, even if Tigers teammates are used to seeing Iglesias make them.

"No, no I love it!" Price replied emphatically. "I hope he gets to the ball every time. I never get tired of seeing other guys, especially teammates, do so well. That was, he did a really good job."