Tuesday, May 19, 2009
SPEECHLESS, PT. 2.
When the alarm went off this morning, I turned to TBF.
“We didn’t really lose the game last night because someone overthrew to home plate, did we?”
“Well, there were a number of things that contributed to us losing the game, including Carlos Beltran and Angel Pagan not catching a ball in the outfield.”
“Yeah. I heard that.”
I was sick yesterday. S-i-c-k sick. I was listening to Howie and Wayne for about the first hour, then fell asleep, then woke up again and watched on TV, then went back to bed just before Ryan Church managed to not touch third base.
That got me up again. I stomped out of the bedroom. TBF was trying to let the game catch up so he could forward through the commercials, but once he saw my face he flipped back to SNY.
“Carlos Beltran?” he asked.
“No.”
“Angel Pagan?”
“No.”
“Ah, Ryan Church.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
I went back to sleep, and was almost there when Pagan and Beltran decided to act like a bunch of Little Leaguers, which of course woke me up again. And then I was just falling back to sleep when Jeremy Reed overthrew and that was when I turned the radio off, not knowing the outcome, not believing that this was actually happening, not wanting to confirm the outcome until the morning.
We are officially at an all-time low, at least in this house. TBF declared it “the worst game of the year”. However, I think he is being kind. That would imply that there is no potential to play worse than this.
At least maybe they’ll stop talking about “edge” and start talking about “fundamentals.”
Posted by Caryn at 07:19 AM
The fly ball in center was Pagan’s fault. Beltran is the CF he makes the call and was calling it all the way.
The last play? Here’s where it gets tricky. Firstly Castro is a horrible catcher, let me say that up front, he has poor defensive fundamentals. So when the bases are loaded with one out, any ground ball hit to the corners goes home. We all know this, question is where should Castro be set up? On the left (facing the outfield) side. ALWAYS. Why? Because the next play is to first and you want a clear throwing path to it without risk of hitting the runner. Castro was on the right side almost on the first base line, why I don’t know. Well besides the obvious which is he can’t play catcher very well.
Now where does the pitcher go? To back up home in case the runner legs it out at first and the person now on third decides to make a break for home. Pretty standard stuff, right? SO why was Brian Stokes running in front of Reed to either go to the dug out or back up first; which he couldn’t because that would be the RFs job especially at the angle the ball would be coming. Makes no sense.
All these are fundamental facts of playing baseball and yet everyone and their mother have put the blame on Jeremy Reed; an outfielder playing 1st! Had Castro been in position, and Stokes been running to where he should have been; and I know I’m going on out on a limb here, but I really think none of this happens. Reed in my opinion isn’t as much at fault as Castro and Stokes; more Stokes because I think he made Reed throw a bit off.
I can’t believe no one in the press has caught on to this yet! I used to play catcher and in drills I always shifted to the third base side for double plays. I’m starting to think that people just aren’t being taught how to play the game correctly anymore…
I went to bed with out even starting the game. I had a big meeting this morning with the county wide superintendent and had to be sharp. So I woke early and watched the MLB.tv condensed game while scarfing down my honey bunches of oats. Words can not describe how agonizing it is to watch and entire game in 20 minutes, let alone one that ends like that. I hope this is the worst game of the year because I can’t take another one that would be worse.