[THE HANGOVER] The One Where We Discuss One Horrible Call, One Great JoeMa Rant, And Rookies Stuck In The Mud
Carl Crawford, Cory Wade, Joe Maddon, Matt Joyce June 14th. 2011, 6:30am
- Tigers 2, Rays 1 (10) (click image for boxscore)
The GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.
THE GOOD: Joe Maddon. When Maddon gets the heave-ho, he always seems to get his money’s worth in F-bombs (as this clip indicates)…BJ Upton. Beej has been erratic with the arm this year. But he had the Cobra on display last night, nailing a runner at home in the first. How often do you see a throw from center hit the mound and take a bad bounce? That is because not many center fielders have Upton’s arm. And unlike Justin Ruggiano in the 7th, this runner was actually out.
THE BAD: Overtime Unneeded. This game only went to overtime after a terrible blown call at home plate on a sac fly in the 7th inning. Justin Ruggiano was blocked off the plate, but avoided the tag and yet was still called out…Stuck in the Mud. Elliot Johnson was picked off in the 3rd. And Sam Fuld was caught trying to get into scoring position in the 9th. Both of those you don’t like, but they happen. Especially Fuld in the 9th. That was the right play. You want to be in scoring position with 2 outs. But you cannot get caught stealing third base with one out and Evan Longoria at the plate. And yet that is exactly what Justin Ruggiano did in the 4th inning. Rookie mistake. Huge rookie mistake.
THE TELLING: That was Joe Maddon’s third ejection of the year…Matt Joyce was out of the lineup for the 2nd straight day…Jeff Niemann will make one more rehab start today, so look for Alex Cobb to make one more start for the Rays before being sent down.
RANDOM THOUGHTS: We stand and applaud Todd Kalas on a job well done during his stint in the TV booth during Brian Anderson’s vacation. We love Anderson in the booth. And someday (soon, we hope) Kalas will get a well deserved booth job. And while we will be happy when it happens, we also know we will miss him terribly.
THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- Bill Moloney, the double-A pitching coach, who was shot a week ago in a mugging attempt, was back in the dugout last night. [Montgomery Advertiser]
- Cory Wade, who was released by the Rays on Sunday, has already signed with the Yankees on a minor league deal. It will be fun facing him at some point this season (no, no it won’t). [MLBTR]
- One of the Rays’ second-round picks, Granden Goetzman, is expected to sign today. [Prep Rally]
- The Rays have already signed 19 late-round draft picks. Typically, college players without any leverage are the first to sign and anxious to prove themselves. [Rays Prospects]
- Will you boo or cheer Carl Crawford? Do you care? [TampaBay.com]
- The new sports anchor at WTSP is a Yankees fan? [Twitter]
- Peter King takes a needless shot at the Rays for some unknown reason: “Somehow I’m guessing the Tampa Bay Rays don’t have braised cauliflower and short-rib-filled ravioli and ziti and salmon in a light lemon cream sauce at their pregame spread.” [SI.com]
DOWN ON THE FARM…
- DURHAM 4, Norfolk 1: Chris Bootcheck, pitched 7 strong innings, allowing just 1 run on 3 hits and no walks. He struck out 4…RF Desmond Jennings was 0-4…CF Brandon Guyer went 3-4 with a triple, an RBI and his 10th steal. He is hitting .322…2B JJ Furmaniak hit his 2nd home run…3B Russ Canzler added 3 hits to raise his average to .292. He also stole 2 bases.
- MONTGOMERY 2, Jacksonville 1: Tim Beckham’s 2-run double in the 8th inning proved to be the game-winner. It was his only hit…Shane Dyer allowed just 1 run in 7 innings on 8 hits and 1 walk. He struck out 1.
- CHARLOTTE @ Palm Beach: (postponed)
- BOWLING GREEN: (no games scheduled)
With Ruggiano hot how are they going to get Desmond up to the bigs unless they trade Bj?
Great to see Granden Goetzman sign!
Terrible call on Ruggiano, no doubt. But the Rays failed to take advantage of a number of scoring opportunities, and we can only blame the umpire for 1 of those.
True. But that one would have likely won the game.
Baseball’s lack of review on critical plays is getting almost comical now.
No, that would have tied the game. You can’t say with certainty that the Rays would have gone on to win. Sorry, I’m sounding awfully grumpy here, and I also wish there were some kind of review available…, but we tend to focus on the bad call as the single factor that lost the game, when in fact there were multiple opportunities for different outcomes.
True. Of course, had he been called safe we would have still had two men on with an opportunity to score another.
But the real point is that it doesn’t matter what other opportunities we blew. We blow opportunities every game. Every team does. But those blown opportunities have nothing to do with the officials. And they don’t make us more or less deserving of sympathy when the officials blow a call.
What matters is that the Rays deserved to have scored a run on that play and didn’t because of official error. Just like the NFL has reviews on TDs, just like the NBA has reviews to see if the ball left someone’s hand before the clock expired, the MLB needs to have reviews on scoring plays.
It’s simple, it’s easy, and it’s just a matter of time. But because baseball is a sport mired in ‘tradition’, calls will continue to get blown until the powers at be realize that there’s no real reason they need to continue to be blown, and that these calls can, and do, actually affect the standings.
You hear people say it all the time, and for good reason- If MLB would just have a person in a booth upstairs with all the camera angles, he/she could very efficiently make a ruling on plays like this. AND, it would be much quicker than waiting for a manager tirade to take place.
MLB needs to get its head out of its arse.
Not enough room on this page to list ALL the things the Rays did Wrong: the mistakes, the missed opportunities, the umpires….but remember..
Stupid baseball plus 1 run in 10innings…and who exactly are you going to beat….and I wish Maddon had as much enthusiasm when he is talking (explaining) to his players what the hell they are suppose to be doing out there!
May I add that there were 2 very close check swing calls (that could have gone either way) that went against the Rays and 1 very close check swing call for Detroit that went their way.
Glad you pointed that out. I was watching on MLB.TV and Detroit’s play by play guys were replaying the hell out of the blown call at the plate; they said it was wrong too. The O’s play by play guys were adamant about Damon’s steal being legit on Sunday too. The Umps have it in for the Rays; close plays go against them enough for me to believe that Umps are definitely biased. Umps look out for each other in a way that is not healthy for the sport. MLB needs to break up the good ole boy culture that Umps covet.
MLB’s credibility is becoming a huge issue with finacial imbalance, schedule imbalance, and the Umpire culture. MLB knows this and that is why your seeing some tiny movement in talks concerning overhauling the divisions and instant replay. Money talks, and they see issues in the lack of growth. Getting back to the Umpire subject, a HUGE example of how screwed up it is; when a batter takes an obvious “ball” and moves toward 1st, only to be called out on strikes or forced to continue the at-bat. That is crap. If it is a “ball”, call it. There is no need to assert your importance by “teaching the player a lesson” by calling him out or making him continue the at-bat. That is common baseball knowledge, yet it is tolerated. That kind of garbage needs to stop. Teams like the Rays already have to deal with so much imbalance as it is, having to overcome blown calls or bullsh*t pride from Umps is incredibly wrong.
I humbly sumbit the fix for Evan Longoria. He MUST close his stance some. He is so open (i.e. left foot starting “in the bucket”), that when he gets an inside pitch to hit, he squares it up and hits dead foul down the 3b line (happened twice in a row in the 6th last night), because that is where his feet are lined up. I think the reason pitchers are feasting on him outside is that he has so long to cover he can’t make it out there from that extreme open stance. Thus, in the 8th inning rally killing ground out, that was a hittable pitch –outer half, a Kevin Kennedy “cookie”, but he is in such a pull stance, he gets it off the end of the bat and has a weak ground out.
Not sure how he got this open — maybe a result of the muscle pulls in the side. But he needs to get closed right away.
Longo has been added to my listof BJ, Brig, SHopp…that when they come to the plate its time to get another beer or take a leak, so when they make an out… I don’t go nuts, and if by some slim chance they get a hit I watch the replay..
Your at it again, when he gets all the way healthy, he’ll be fine. Meanwhile, unless you’ve been there, you should stay quiet.He never said he was the savior of this team, he’s just trying to get his swing back.
Who cares if the Rays wasted chances? The Tigers were doing that all night!
How do you stand there and wait to see if he gets the plate before the tag, see him get the plate and still say “OUT”? Sometimes I wonder how much it takes Maddon to hold himself back from pushing that dumb ass ump.
It was a shame Sam Fuld decided to play Crocodile Mile in the ninth…