Over the course of the 4 hour affair that is a professional Baseball game, amidst the hundreds of different plays, the umpires that control the game are bound to make mistakes. The only problem was that last night, those mistakes came in the dozens..and it showed.
Fact is throughout the night you could tell that the number of times John Farrall muttered something along the lines of "what the heck." was somewhere up in the high 50s and even when looking at the number of times, he left his dugout to go get his 2 cents with the home plate umpire you could tell that the games referees were not doing very good. But nevertheless, no exhibition of violent temper exceeded a 7th inning outburst by star DH David Ortiz.
After seeing an obvious ball that would have given Ortiz a walk called a strike, the slugger never managed to collect himself and struck out on the ensuing pitch. Obviously enraged by the call, Ortiz proceeded to the dugout but seemed to stay in the game. That is until he raced into the Boston dugout, bat in hand, and proceeded to massacre the covering on the managers phone to the bull pen. THEN he got the boot.
But at that point in the 7th inning, David was not done and as he ran back out onto the field he was forced to be restrained in a situation reminiscent of that bench clearing brawl that Papi had with Orials pitcher Kevin Greeg a few years back.
"It was horrible," Ortiz said. "People always focus on when we snap. We're not snapping every day out there, there's a reason why we snap. You always look like the bad guy -- I'm not a bad guy, I'm trying to do my job. You don't take my at-bat away from me like that." Ortiz later said on the situation.
But nonetheless, no matter how many times the umpires mess up (and yes almost all of their problems were on Boston's side of things) the Sox still managed to pull out a win and unlike recent games where they have struggled to put up runs: last night was not a game won by pitching, it was a game won singlehandedly by short stop Stephan Drew.
Fact is coming into last night, Drew was not the hot bat you looked to, too produce home runs. In fact before his 2 homer performance last night he had belted just 5 all season long and produced just 37 RBI's. That is almost half the RBI's that David Ortiz has notched and 14 less home runs. But stats do not play the game and last night was a perfect example of when that fact is ever so true.
With his team already up 1-0, Drew came to bat in the top of the 4th inning after watching his team put 2 guys on base with just one out to go. Turning on one of the first pitches he saw, Drew belted the shot to left field to give the Sox a 4-0 lead and the first 3 RBI's of Drew's night.
But he was not done. 2 innings later with another man on situation, Drew came up to bat string right into the eyes of fellow teammate Jarrod Saltilamaccia who was on 2nd base. After stepping into the batter box, Drew once again belted a long ball to center field where after the Orials outfield bobbled the throw into the infield, Drew realized that according to the referees, this ball was not gone, at least not yet.
“Then we started taking off running,” Drew said to the Boston Globes, Julian Benbow.
Saltilamaccia would come around to score without a problem but in more pressing developments, Drew soon found himself caught in a run down between 3rd base and Home plate. But Drew never gave up and, after several throws between the Baltimore catcher: Matt Weiters and the Baltimore 3rd basemen: Manny Muchado, Weiters bobbled a throw and allowed Drew to escape their grasp and dart for home. Turning on a dime, Weitera than fired a throw to his pitcher who was then covering home plate that ended up going wide and allowed Drew to score without even going into a slide.
“When I saw it hit, I was like, ‘That’s another home run,’ ” Drew said. “I just knew there was no call. So you just had to keep playing it out.”
Now the Sox would add one more run to their total when Shane Victorino cranked a homer of his own in the 7th inning but in the end, Boston wouldn't need it as they played to a dominant 7-3 win at Camden Yards.
Fact is since the all-star break the Boston Red Sox have been a little less than good and have fallen out of first place in the division for the first time in 2 months. But nevertheless with their win last night they have managed to keep pace with the division leading Rays and have secured what might be their first dominant win of the second half.
All we can hope for is that they keep this up and can win a pivotal 1 game set tomorrow with the Rays that could very well give Boston the lead in the East.
To see the entire Ortiz incident click here
To see both of Stephan Drew's home runs last night click here
0 comments:
Post a Comment