Frayed Knot

That makes RA the oldest pitcher to make a post-season debut. But now, even with a 7-1 lead and 2 outs in the 5th (aka: one out short of qualifying for a win) he's being pulled in favor of David Price. The Jays have evidently decided that Stroman is going to be their Game 5 starter rather than Price, but it still seems like an odd move to me, both in who is relieving and also when.

Utley didn't slide past the base because he was called out, but he ran off the field because of it and I know I've heard that the replay umps were instructed not to penalize players for doing so. And we can call it 'judgement' all we want, but Utley had no reason to return to the bag nor did Tejada have any reason to re-tag either the base or Utley because both assumed it was pointless to do so. But that's exactly what this system forces the replay umps to do: c/would Utley have returned to the base before Ruben c/would have tagged him trying to do so. Whatever answer they come up with at that point is stupid and, yeah, it's pretty much guesswork.

That's not true (addressing FK Post). They had the discretion. It's in my earlier post. Here's the rule: Correcting an Incorrect Call Consistent with Official Baseball Rule 8.02(c) (formerly Rule 9.02(c)), if Replay Review results in a change to a call that had been made on the field, the Replay Official, to the extent feasible, shall exercise his discretion to place both Clubs in the same position they would have been in had the call on the field been correct. This shall include placing runners where he thinks those runners would have been at the conclusion of the reviewed play if the reviewed call had been correctly made in the first instance, disregarding interference or obstruction that may have occurred on the play, failures of runners to tag up based upon the initial call on the field, runners passing other runners, missing bases, etc. The replay official could have ruled that the toe did not hit the base, but that since Utley had gone that far past the base, that he would not have gotten back in time. But the flaw in all that is that they ruled Utley left the field because he was called out and therefore shouldn't be penalized. The only way to negate this whole 'put them back where they belong' nonsense if for ALL players to pretend that ALL calls went against them and start running around re-tagging runners, re-stepping on bases, and diving back to bases after they've already been called out, etc., and then the whole game becomes a farce. It creates the stupid scenario where if Utley was the one hurt (say woozy from the knee to the head) and Tejada not then maybe they rule the other way because they figure that Ruben was more likely to tag him out then he was to get back to the bag. It's fucking guesswork which creates a result which is much worse than the toe 1/2 inch off the base in the first place - but the umps didn't create the system, they just have to manage and enforce it.

In the meantime, KC was down 6-2 but put up a 5-spot in the 8th and are now looking to close out the Astros in bottom 9 oe: whoops, it's still top-9 and KC isn't done tacking on.

As I understand, even if all 6 umps thought it was interference after review, they still couldn't do anything about it because it's a judgement call, which is not reviewable anyway. That is dumb. The REPLAY process couldn't overturn the non-interference call. There's nothing preventing the umps on the field from huddling up and correcting it on their own. And to address CF's point about putting Utley back on 2nd: that's really a separate issue. The replay guys are strictly looking at whether Tejada's toe touched the bag. Once they rule 'No' he's ruled safe. The system is flawed in that it forces the umps to pretend they can recreate where guys would have been had the "wrong" call not occurred in the first place, but that's the way it's written so that's the way they need to work it.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: This, I get totally. I have trouble seeing Utley's slide as dirty because it's an extremely, extremely rare circumstance when the ump calls interference and enforces the automatic double play. I don't think it's all that rare. I mean it's not a common situation which calls for that call to begin with. It has to be a DP situation, the runner has to get close enough to the pivot man by the time the flip is made, an illegal slide has to be made, and then said slide has to interfere with the completion of a DP. And even with all that, a certain portion of those situations are going to result in the 2B ump indicating an interference call (raises a hand) but never enforcing it because the DP is successfully completed anyway. But, again, none of that has anything to do with whether lunging at a guy's legs is dirty or not.

Royals become the latest team to get screwed by a replay catching a runner's foot coming off a base for a split second as he came out of his slide. 3-2 Houston, bottom 7

When the back leg of a slider doesn't hit ground until it's on the far side of the bag and after he's already rammed into the fielder then it's not a clean slide. Clean slides and breaking up DPs are not mutually exclusive terms.

Utley's camp claims they need more time for their case so the appeal is unlikely to be held today and unlikely to be held on Tuesday either (NY Post). All of which means, of course, that he is eligible to play in both games and will quite likely be in the starting lineup tonight.

Edgy MD wrote: Sure, but unlike 2000, now there's a mechanism for the league over-ruling umps on the field. You mean the replay provision? Well sure, but that's not the league judging the umps, it umps ruling on umps and even then only on the specifics of the challenge; namely: Did Ruben's toe touch the base? Torre's job is to be after the fact discipline czar, there's no way he's going to re-call plays on the field.

Edgy MD wrote: Which, of course, makes it, once again, eerily similar to the Clemens violation. If his transgression was worthy of discipline after the game, how was it considered kosher during the game? Was Clemens ever disciplined? Anyway, the 'How can it be' part is because it's the umps' judgement ruling in the first case and then the league deciding on something else after the fact. What they're saying, despite not specifically saying it, is that the umps royally screwed up their call. I tend to feel like, going back at least 20 years, 80% of the appealed suspensions in MLB are resolved by the player getting his suspension cut in half in exchange for dropping the appeal. I imagine that will happen this time. Not sure that that large a percentage get reduced. Besides, I think at least half the purpose of the suspension -- and specifically its length -- is to keep Utley off of CitiField. We shirley don't KNOW what would have happened had the home games been reversed and the next two were due to be played in LA, but I know a lot of people are thinking that way. This is also not, I'm sure some of you will recall, the first time a Dodger has been suspended during a post-season game vs the Mets. Reliever Jay Howell was ejected and later suspended mid-AB when the umps caught him with a (slightly) smaller version of the La Brea tar pit on his glove. His suspension, IIRC, was reduced upon appeal but that was more based on his argument that a missed post-season game carries more weight than missing one in the regular season. The league (Uberroth?) bought that logic and reduced his sentence from 3 games down to 2 (or maybe it was 2 to 1) but it was definitely not a case where the suspension was pre-reduced in a plea arrangement kind of thing. As far as I can remember, no Dodger was blatantly cheating during the 2006 NLDS - or maybe some were but the Mets were too busy rolling over them to bother complaining about it.

Except that he has decent numbers against Harvey (6-18 w/1 2B, 1 HR and only 1 K) and likely would have started tonight -- and still might depending on whether his suspension gets overturned or at least put off.

�After thoroughly reviewing the play from all conceivable angles, I have concluded that Mr. Utley�s action warrants discipline,� Joe Torre said. �While I sincerely believe that Mr. Utley had no intention of injuring Ruben Tejada, and was attempting to help his Club in a critical situation, I believe his slide was in violation of Official Baseball Rule 5.09(a)(13), which is designed to protect fielders from precisely this type of rolling block that occurs away from the base.� Utley, however, can appeal the suspension. If he appeals, the release says, the discipline will be postponed until the �process is complete.� So Joe, had the short-stop's name been 'Jeter' how many months would he have been suspended?

metsmarathon wrote: Utley was just suspended 2 games for his illegal slide. Conveniently the length of the remainder of the Dodgers' season.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: But frankly, the near-universal sympathy almost makes it worse, in a way... it underscores the egregiousness of it all. Right! Like if the fry-chef, the check-out girl, and the priest all knew it was fucked up, why didn't six umpires?

There was a time when it was a given among baseball trivia buffs that Vida Blue was the answer to most questions - at least to the point where if you couldn't think of an answer then your best shot was just to throw Vida Blue out there and take your chances. 'Last Switch-Hitting MVP' was one of the stumpers where VB turned out to be the trick answer.

Well Chance won it at age 23 so obviously Gooden was younger when he won - although that was 21 years later. oe: oh and Saberhagen the same year. And probably Vida Blue as well. If there were others in between I can't think of any.

Hmmmmm, turns out that a ball off the roof of the Dome in Houston is a live ball. Rasmus just singled off the rafters in RF for the Astros.

Back when there was only one CY given out each year (until 1967) for both leagues Chance took one away from Koufax, the only one Sandy didn't win in a four year run - the final four of his career as it turned out. When I heard earlier today that he had died the CY thing was my first memory. I had completely forgotten that he was (very briefly) a Met. Looking over his records he was one of those pitchers from that era who was up at age 20, a full-timer by 21 (3rd in ROY), made 35 starts [u:2ifzsb61]AND[/u:2ifzsb61] 10 relief appearances at 22, and threw 200+ innings/year for seven consecutive seasons during which time he led the league in starts once (39), in IP twice (278 & 283) and CG twice (15 & 18) You know, back when men were men. But what the 'BWMWM' crowd usually fails to mention is that he then had his last full & good season at age 28 and was out of the game by age 30. Ahh yes, the good old days.

A protest will just get dismissed as 'judgement' under the reasoning that Utley was close enough to touch the base (even though he didn't); that his slide hit ground about even with the base (and therefore wasn't past it); that replay shows Tejada didn't touch the base therefore negating the 'neighborhood' ruling. That the replay ruling further fucked us was as predictable as it was horrifying. The one fatal flaw in all replay rules is the idea that you can pretend to set everything 'right' based on what would have happened had the correct ruling been made in the first place. But that doesn't work and so umps have to make flawed assumptions based on what they think might have happened. In this case it's that Utley would have gotten back to 2nd (from where he wound up in short LF) if properly called safe but that Tejada (or another Met) would NOT have tagged him before he could do so. I suspect that Utley will be disciplined somehow - fines and/or suspension -- but that it will hardly matter in the larger scheme of things. It's even possible that that play was Utley's final one in the major leagues, not because he's going to be kicked out permanently but that he hit as badly for the Dodgers as he did as a Phillie and therefore might not get an offer next season. Plus the Dodger season is ending on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, five years plus 17 days ago

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I'm mad because a) Even though I understand "hardball" is a real thing and beloved by tough guys like Cal Ripken, and almost --but not -- OK on a weird play like that, the way the umps fucked us over *following* that cowardly shit illustrates everything *else* wrong with baseball Addison Reed. a) agreed, and again it brings up the fiction that replay is some sort of benign fix-all that corrects the wrong while allowing the right to stand. Except that it sometimes makes things worse and folks are dreaming if they think they can have the good without the bad. Not good obviously - even though some were screaming For him yesterday.

I dunno, only saw a few seconds of it. But he's not going to commit to anything now. And anything he does won't have an effect on the game obviously, but it might on Utley.

Torre in the midst of a news conference talking about the possibility of further action on the Utley slide, acknowledges that the lateness of it is in question.

HahnSolo wrote: Didn't we lose a big game on an interference call against Marlon Anderson that was real similar to this play? That sounds familiar although I can't remember the details. Someone here (Greg) will.