Home MLB Replays, earned runs and shortstops at second base: Rangers-Astros 23 May 2009

Replays, earned runs and shortstops at second base: Rangers-Astros 23 May 2009

by Matt Smith

Last weekend saw the first instalment of Interleague play during the 2009 MLB season.  There are plenty of reasons to dislike the now traditional sight of AL and NL teams coming together outside of the World Series, but it does at least give fans in two-team cities and states the chance to gain bragging rights for a few weeks. 

The Lone Star Series is one such example.  The Houston Astros and Texas Rangers come together to try to gain Major League wins and to capture the ‘Silver Boot’ trophy.   

Their early game a week ago today allowed me to get a first-hand look at what the Texas rivalry is all about.  Being an A’s fan, I tend to see a fair amount of Rangers games over the course of a season (including the first game of a double-header against Oakland last night), but I haven’t seen a great deal of the Astros.  Judging by their win-loss record, it doesn’t look like I’ve missed a lot.  As I noted in my feature on the Astros at MLBlogs earlier this week, they are a team stuck in limbo: neither set to win now or in the near future. 

We’re always told in football that form counts for nothing in derby games, so I was hoping that the Astros would rise to the occasion.  That didn’t turn out to be the case, they lost all three games in the series, although they started brightly in the second game.

After Michael Bourn’s groundout to the second baseman led-off the bottom of the first inning, I had to wait seven minutes before being able to note down the next play on my scorecard.  Miguel Tejada belted a Scott Feldman pitch to the right-field wall where Nelson Cruz tried in vain to make the catch.  The ball bounced back down on to the field, with Cruz pointing up at a fan in the stands while the first base umpire whirled his finger in the air indicating a home run. 

Tejada made his way around the bases and stood in the Astros’ dugout looking as confused as everyone else.  The umpires had an impromptu chin-wag out on the field and decided to make use of the Instant Replay system.  So we all waited.  Feldman gently tossed the ball around to keep loose.  The announcers looked at the replays on numerous occasions, which didn’t allow them to state a convincing case either way as to whether the footage backed up the call on the field or not.  Meanwhile Tejada and his teammates were standing in the dugout, desperate to begin their ‘let’s all jump up and down together’ celebrations.

They were not to be denied their moment of joy.  The pictures weren’t conclusive, the call on the field had to stand and a home run could be duly noted on my scorecard. 

Rangers fans watching FOX’s coverage would have been forgiven for muttering a few swear words at that point.  The announcer Eric Karros had begun the inning by talking up Feldman’s impressive run of not conceding a homer during his six previous appearances.  It was a classic case of the ‘Commentator’s Curse’.

Karros didn’t just spend his time jinxing the Rangers though, he also added in what turned out to be an inspired comment.  The Astros’ starter Brian Moehler was perfect through the first three innings (brilliantly revealed in perfect form on a standard scorecard), but Karros sounded a note of caution: getting through the lineup the first time is one thing, he pondered, keeping the batters down during the second and third time through the order is much more difficult.

Karros was made to look a genius in the bottom of the fourth inning as Moehler immediately hit trouble.  In fact, he was hit out of the park by Nelson Cruz for a three-run homer to give the Rangers a 3-1 lead.  He conceded another run in the fifth inning before being chased in the sixth by back-to-back jacks.  Cruz made it two out of two for him by launching another shot to left-centre, while Hank Blalock sent one into the right-field seats. 

The Astros couldn’t rescue the game from there, although they finally managed to get to Feldman in the seventh inning.  Geoff Blum hit a two-run round-tripper to reduce the deficit to 6-3 and to send me scurrying to section 10.16 of the rule book.

Whether a run is earned or unearned is one of those decisions that always leaves me second-guessing myself.  It’s an interesting topic, as noted by Tim in the comments to last week’s ‘Weekly’ Hit Ground Ball column.  The indecision cropped up this time because Hunter Pence’s tour around the bases ahead of Blum included an error: Pence made first on a single, but advanced to second on the same play due to a fielding error by Feldman. 

Blum batted him in on the home run and I was fairly sure that both runs would be earned.  Pence hadn’t reached base on an error, nor had his time on the bases been prolonged due to an error, and his advancement to second didn’t directly aid his journey to home plate (he would have scored on Blum’s homer even if he was still standing on first).  Yet I still felt compelled to double-check the point, demonstrating my lack of complete confidence on the rules governing earned and unearned runs. 

It’s definitely something I need to put a bit of work into.  One point I did clarify on the way is the fact that the error was made by the pitcher has no bearing on the decision.  10.16 (e) states:

“An error by a pitcher is treated exactly the same as an error by any other fielder in computing earned runs”. 

As the decision of whether a run is earned or not reflects on the pitcher, there’s an argument that their own mistake shouldn’t lead to a run being unearned.  No doubt there is a good reason why the rule is written as it is. 

The Astros tried to rally in the bottom of the ninth.  Pence got on board with a lead-off single, although that doesn’t tell the whole story.  The Rangers’ wonderkid shortstop Elvis Andrus made a tremendous diving grab on the play and Pence only narrowly beat out his throw.  It was yet another example of why the Rangers have placed so much faith in Andrus this season at the age of just twenty.

One of the enjoyable subplots to this game was that the Rangers had a master-and-apprentice Keystone combination, as veteran shortstop whiz Omar Vizquel played at second base alongside his heir apparent.  It was strange to see him there.  Vizquel had played just two innings in the Majors at that position – one inning back in 1991 with the Mariners and one against the A’s earlier this season – prior to the game.  The unfamiliar sight almost led to me making a scorekeeping error for the lead-off batter in the fourth inning.

Miguel Tejada managed to muscle a ball into right-field and Vizquel started running after it.  He casually reached up with his right hand and threw his cap to the ground before making an over-the-shoulder catch to get the out.  After cheering the play, I very nearly wrote ‘P6’ on my scorecard (arguably it should be a ‘F’ for a fly?) through force of habit.

It was a useful reminder that a scorekeeper should never assume anything on a play, especially when it relates to a legendary shortstop making a great catch at an unfamiliar fielding position.  A ‘P6’ would not have just robbed Vizquel of an out, but also the evidence that at forty-two years old he can still make fielding plays wherever the manager puts him.

Although I don’t think I’ll be noting down ‘P1’ on a Vizquel pop-up catch anytime in the future.

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1 comment

Joe Gray May 30, 2009 - 9:15 pm

For Mariners’ fans, the terrible mistake that is interleague play is not even rescued by a meaningful geographical rivalry.

Unless you know that the dodgy insurance salesman that swindled you out of your life savings is a Padres fan, then there’s little to get excited about.

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