By
Steve Kallas (posted by Rick Morris)
With
the Yankees trying to hang in there, but on the virtual brink of not making the
playoffs, there has been a fascinating play in each of their last two games
(against Toronto on Thursday and against San Francisco on Friday) that are
worth analyzing. Both will be lost in
the annals of baseball history as neither had an effect on the outcome of the
game.
PLAY
1, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2013, TOP OF THE THIRD
INNING
C.C
Sabathia pitching, Brandon Crawford on first, nobody out. The batter, Joaquin Arias, takes a full swing
at a 1-2 pitch and hits the ball in fair territory just inches from home plate. Rookie catcher JR Murphy pounces on the ball,
reaches to tag Arias and then fires to second.
The throw is a little high and Robinson Cano can’t get a tag on
Crawford, who is safe at second.
The
YES TV announcers give full credit to Murphy for a good play. Michael Kay says, “Quick hands there by
Murphy as he tagged out Arias at home plate and then fired to second but
Crawford got in ahead of the tag.” Al
Leiter then chipped in with “Good reaction play. Obviously a ball hit, you have to wait for
the umpire to make a call. Dana DeMuth,
the home plate umpire. Let’s see here
the ball just kicks on the white line, and then rolls in front, nice job by JR
Murphy.” Leiter went on to say that “You
see that Crawford immediately running just in case it is fair. If that ball was a little lower, I think
Robinson Cano could have made a tag on it.”
Yikes!
In
reality, it was a poor play by Murphy.
Why? Well, that’s easy. The batter (Arias) didn’t run at all out of
the box. In fact, when Murphy picked up
the ball, Arias was 88 or 89 feet from first base and wasn’t running. So why bother to tag him? He had no chance to get to first before a
throw from Cano.
As
you know, by tagging Arias, there is now no force at second. So Cano is forced to try and tag the runner
(Crawford) rather than just stepping on second and throwing out Arias at first
by 60 or 70 feet.
Nor
did this dawn on the announcers when the next batter, on the next pitch, drove
Crawford home from second. Imagine if
the Giants had won the game, 2-1 (of course, A-Rod would later hit a grand slam
for a 5-1 Yankee victory and, unfortunately, surpass Lou Gehrig for the
all-time grand slam record; now 24 with an asterisk).
In
reality, a poor play by the catcher.
Hopefully former catcher Joe Girardi (or Tony Pena) told him this later
in the dugout.
One
final thought on this play. When anybody
(coach manager, announcer, former player, “expert,” fill in anybody you want)
says that, “Obviously a ball hit you have to wait for the umpire to make a
call,” ignore that advice at all costs.
It’s
Intro to Baseball that, when a ball is hit and it’s not clear if it’s fair or
foul, run as fast as you can BEFORE the ump makes a call. And, if you are the catcher in this instance,
pick up the ball and DON’T tag the runner (who
isn’t running) first. You might just
turn a very easy double play instead of leaving a runner in scoring position.
PLAY
2, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2013, BOTTOM OF THE FIRST
INNING
This
goes under the category of “When you watch a baseball game, you might see
something you’ve never seen before.”
While we sometimes see two runners standing on a base (especially
third), we never see a guy dive back to third and then roll into foul
territory, well of the base.
Hiroki
Kuroda pitching, Jose Reyes on third, Brett Lawrie on first, one out. Adam Lind hits a dribbler to Kuroda’s
left. Kuroda picks up the ball, throws
home and catcher Chris Stewart runs Reyes back to third. Meanwhile, Brett Lawrie has come all the way
around from first and slides into third.
Stewart flips the ball to third baseman Mark Reynolds, who swipes at
Reyes and misses the tag.
Reyes
dives head first back into third, touches third briefly and then, inexplicably,
rolls a few feet off the base into foul territory. Reynolds then tags Lawrie, who is standing on
third base (Reyes is clearly NOT on third base at the time) and tags Reyes, who
is clearly out because he is not touching third base.
Third
base umpire Dan Iassogna calls both Reyes and Lawrie out. Lawrie argues, the manager argues, all to no
avail. Inning over on the double
play. The YES announcers try to explain
what happened (interestingly, John Flaherty, an intelligent catcher in his day,
admitted he really didn’t know the rule).
Eventually, Michael Kay reads the rule (set out below) and states that,
since both runners were on the base, it was a double play.
Except
they weren’t.
Here’s
MLB Rule 7.03 (a):
“Two
runners may not occupy a base, but if, while the ball is alive, TWO RUNNERS ARE TOUCHING a base, the
following runner shall be out when tagged and the preceding runner is entitled
to the base, … .” (emphasis added)
On
this play, however, when Lawrie, (the “following” runner) was standing on third
and was tagged by Reynolds, Reyes (the “preceding” runner) was NOT touching
third base. In fact, again inexplicably,
he was a few feet away from third base lying on the ground in foul territory.
The
only way this could have been a double play was if Reynolds tagged Lawrie in
the brief instant that Reyes touched third base and then tagged Reyes when he
was off the base. This clearly did not
happen.
Again,
since this play had no real effect on the game (Toronto won 6-2), there really
was no discussion of it. But, clearly,
it was the wrong call and Lawrie should have been safe at third and just Reyes
called out for being tagged while not touching third base.
This
writer was able to speak with a knowledgeable baseball man who has umpired many
games. The best he could come up with
was that the third base umpire thought that both Lawrie and Reyes were on the
bag at the time Lawrie was tagged (so Lawrie would be out under the rule) and
then Reyes came off third and was tagged out.
But
that clearly did NOT happen.
Something
you may never see again. You gotta love
baseball.
No comments:
Post a Comment