Bet you've never seen a three-run single before

[rsc]

I am, of course, thrilled that the Red Sox beat the Angels in the ALDS (again), and I can even almost forgive them for losing in an excruciating 12 innings at the one game we attended (having it end late enough that we deemed that we had to walk home was merely a bonus).

Among the many unbeauties of a deeply unbeautiful game was one that we could, at least, be happy about (if only temporarily): Jacoby Ellsbury's pop fly that the Angels fielders apparently considered radioactive, as they all seemed loath to touch it, with the result that it fell to the grass uncaught. The bases were loaded, there were two out, and the count was full, so of course all three runners had scored by the time the ball was retrieved, even though Ellsbury himself only had time to get to first base. Official scorers generally do not (or their rules do not permit them to) assign an error to whoever should have caught a ball that falls untouched, so it goes in the books as a single, three RBI.

This goes along with two other inexplicable blunders by the Angels (Vladimir Guerrero's overly exuberant attempt to go to third in Game 1, and the suicidal suicide squeeze attempt in Game 4) -- both of which, unlike the one described above, probably cost them the games they occurred in -- to make one wonder if, after all, their postseason history with the Sox did get into their heads.

Comments

[lcohen]

i was listening to the radio this morning on the way in (farewell to the white sox season *sigh*) and there was a lot of discussion about that failed suicide squeeze and whether the catcher dropping the ball meant that the runner should have been called safe. not having seen the play, i have no opinion, and i'm sure you're happy with the outcome, but that debate is out there.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

We got to see a lot of replays of that, as you might imagine, and from the replays it's clear that what happened is: 1) Varitek lunged at Willets and tagged him; 2) the momentum of his lunge carried him forward, so that he fell to the ground; 3) the impact of his glove hitting the ground knocked the ball loose. Of course this all happened rather fast, but the replays bear out the umpire's judgement that he had control of the ball at the time the tag was made (and for a short time thereafter, whether that counts for anything or not).

On the postgame show, Cal Ripken said that, while the replays seem to show that the call was correct, we've all seen lots of plays at the plate where the catcher has the ball, makes the tag, and then the ball is jarred loose by the collision with the runner -- and then the runner is called safe; so why was this different?

None of the other commentators seemed to know, although one of them offered the possibility that the fact that it wasn't the runner's action that knocked the ball loose might be significant. I might amplify that to suggest that, in such cases, the ball is knocked out as the tag is made, rather than afterwards.

My condolences to you, and to Chicago fans of all stripes.