Prospectus Today

Absent Without Leave

by Joe Sheehan

I get accused of bias quite often, so I'm going to cop to one here. When I wrote :

For the sake of everyone involved—by which I mean 50,000-odd baseball fans currently chugging Theraflu prophylatically—let's hope MLB makes a call on this game early. … If it's going to rain all night—and it's going to rain all night—call it at 4 p.m. and show that you give a darn about the fans.

…it wasn't entirely a neutral position. I've been pretty sick since Thursday, and because of that and the brutal forecast, I gave up a ticket to last night's game. It just seemed like a bad decision, during the busiest month of my year, to spend four hours with a whole bunch of strangers in the rain and cold when I'm already fighting off something that's affecting my ability to work. It was the mature, professional thing to do.

Maybe I should have resigned, because not only did it not rain for most of the night, but as you all know, Game Two of the ALCS was a classic contest that will be remembered for years. In what has become one of those Octobers, one of those months that leaves you breathless until Thanksgiving, last night's game may be the signature game. We got five hours and ten minutes of baseball that, fittingly, wasn't always clean, wasn't always well-umpired, wasn't always played in the best of conditions, but nonetheless left us even more in love with the game than ever before.

It ended, appropriately, with a series of mistakes. With first and second and one out in the 13^th, Maicer Izturis ranged to his left to play a ground ball by Melky Cabrera. Instead of taking the out at first base, a sure play, he tried to wheel and get the runner at second. His poor throw was what allowed Jerry Hairston Jr. to round third and score the winning run, but it was the decision that was the real problem. There was no chance at all at a double play, given how far Izturis had to range and that Cabrera started from the left-hand batter's box. The value of the runner going to second was zero; the only runner who mattered was Hairston, who was going to third in all cases. Even nominally "keeping the force alive" wasn't in play, as Cabrera would have likely taken an unoccupied second base via defensive indifference on the next pitch. Izturis chased a play with no chance of success and a high risk of catastrophic failure—the spin throw to second is a tough play under the best of circumstances—for absolutely no benefit.

The decision was the first mistake, the throw the second. Perhaps lost in the chaos is that if Chone Figgins takes his time and makes a clean play on the errant throw, he would have had a great shot at gunning down Hairston at home plate; I would go so far as to say Hairston was a dead duck. Perhaps understandably, Figgins wasn't able to get a handle on the ball, and his bobble was the final mistake that ended the game. Physical errors happen, but the mental error, losing sight of the importance, or lack thereof, of a baserunner, was the real cause of the game-winning run.

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sprechs

(30467)

Great analysis, as always. Regarding Damon--because Girardi had pinch run Gardner for Swisher in the 7th, he didn't have anyone other than Hairston to put in LF. It would've helped had they had Hinske on the roster, but they felt the need for three catchers...Girardi's overmanaging made that run possible.

Oct 18, 2009 11:26 AM