Should Words Serve the Truth? : Angels 6, Jays 5 (14 Inn.)
by hugo on Apr 10, 2011 2:15 AM EDT
in Toronto Blue Jays Game Recaps
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PrintInsanity. Utter insanity. We wuz robbed.
On the Mound:
It wasn't a good start for Brett Cecil. Brett was throwing strikes, but made a couple of costly mistakes with pitches up. More worrying, he seemed to lack the ability to put hitters away once he had gotten them to two strikes. The Angels have been hitting well and it's just been two starts from Cecil, but he wasn't sharp. His final line was 10(!) hits in 5 innings, with 3 Ks, 1 home run ( a solo shot by Howie Kendrick), and 1 walk. If you're looking for a silver lining, he did get 7 groundballs to 4 in the air, and induced a couple of double plays that mitigated the damage. I'm not ready to panic yet, but it'd be nice to see him come back with a strong start next time.
At the Plate:
The Jays' first two runs scored on outs - an RBI groundout by Travis Snider in the second and a sac fly by Adam Lind in the 3rd. J.P. Arencibia had a great day at the plate, with a couple of well-stung doubles, one of which he was able to stretch into a "triple" when he ill-advisedly broke for third and Howie Kendrick bobbled the ball to give away a sure out. Rajai Davis came up with a big 2-run single in the fourth, and Aaron Hill followed it up with a single to cash Davis (who had moved up to second on the previous throw home). Jose Bautista had a great day at the plate and was just all over the bases all day long, with some great at-bats, but he did fly out with the bases loaded and two out in the 12th. John McDonald was hitting the ball sharply all day and had three hits to show for it. It was a good day for the Jays at the plate, with each starter having at least one productive plate appearance (walk, hit, or run-scoring out). That is, until the game was on the line. After the 4th inning, no more scoring. Time after time, with runners in scoring position and a chance to win, the Jays just weren't able to convert. Finally, in the 13th, the Jays appeared to score a run on an Edwin Encarnacion infield single. But Yunel Escobar, who had drawn a walk as a pinch-hitter for Mike McCoy, was called out for obstruction on the basepaths. I must say, I didn't notice anything of the kind. And the chance to win slipped through the Jays' fingers.
From the Pen:
Carlos Villanueva relieved Cecil in the 6th and pitched two great innings. He allowed a walk and no hits, struck out 3, and induced a couple of ground ball outs. Great stuff. Marc Rzepczynski followed Villanueva and pitched two great innings of his own. Jason Frasor took over in the 10th and pitched a great inning, overmatching Peter Bourjos and Maicer Izturis on high fastballs and getting Howie Kendrick to ground out. After Frasor was the victim of an Edwin Encarnacion throwing error in the 11th, Octavio Dotel gave up a hit and a walk to load the bases with no one out, but Dotel managed to wriggle out of it. Camp relieved Dotel in the 12th and pitched a good inning. He got into trouble in the 13th, but managed to find his way out of it due to a nice play by Travis Snider and some poor baserunning by the Angels.
In the Field:
John McDonald had a great day at short, making a number of nice plays. He was just fantastic. Travis Snider made a mistake in the third to give away an extra base, a precursor for how the game would end. In the bottom of the 11th, Encarnacion fielded a routine grounder and, with plenty of time, made a poor throw that Adam Lind couldn't snag, leading to a bases-loaded, no one out situation in the 11th. Luck and great pitching by Octavio Dotel prevented E^3 from being the goat. Snider made a nice sliding catch in the 13th and a smart play to double up Torii Hunter at first base, but not so in the 14th. Snider got a horrible read off a line drive off Peter Bourjos' bat and got eaten up on the ball, which went right over his head as he was flatfooted. Bourjos scored the winning run on a single by Maicer Izturis and that was all she wrote.
Today's title provided by the great San Pedro (close enough to Anaheim) band the Minutemen, from their song "Do You Want New Wave Or Do You Want the Truth?"
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i think this was
the strangest game i’ve ever seen.
To Infinity. And BEYOND!!!
by YunelTheLazyLatino on Apr 10, 2011 2:23 AM EDT reply actions
It's definitely...
A memorable one that will be sure to make a (Top 10 list) of Jays games this season.
"Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman
by Jeremiah Stanghini on Apr 10, 2011 5:14 AM EDT up reply actions
very pissed off, i wanna throw some crap in Davidsons face…………what a brutal ump
Toronto Maple Leafs: All about the Lemon Grabs
Twitter
As I pleaded in the game thread
The Powers That Be: Please save every single thread from that game. I’m sure a lot of us would like to go through it in the future to relive this game.
seconded
To Infinity. And BEYOND!!!
by YunelTheLazyLatino on Apr 10, 2011 2:28 AM EDT up reply actions
Why would you want...
to relive this game… wouldn’t that kind of be torturous?
"Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman
by Jeremiah Stanghini on Apr 10, 2011 5:15 AM EDT up reply actions
Its torturous now
In the future, it’ll be hilarious
To Infinity. And BEYOND!!!
by YunelTheLazyLatino on Apr 10, 2011 9:22 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Usually when they are just hidden you can access them from the links at the end of each thread. As long as the first one is left on you can get to the others,
As a Toronto sports fan I proudly follow the lessons of lachrymology.
"He drives that new car around town and feels really good about it." - Ron Wilson
"Vancouver, BC: A massive inferiority complex with a city." - TheOtherAndrew
"HOPE is more than a postponed disappointment" - Epica
Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. When they are hidden you get the page cannot be found thing from sbnation. That is why we started using fanshots since they just stay on the sidebar.. although I dont like how we clog up the fanshot bar that way…
I think you'll find I'm universally recognised as a mature and responsible adult.
Twitter is the thing with all the tweets...
Balls. That is all… okey that’s not all. Complete horrific call by the umpire I ain’t one to bitch about calls by officials but damnit that was awful. My sole hope is that Karma somehow punishes the umpire in some proportional manner and that the LAA walk the earth knowing that they have one won that is undeserved.
Ump stole a win from us. They really need to give managers a single replay or challenge per game
by Brandon Slopack on Apr 10, 2011 2:32 AM EDT reply actions
To be fair
Isn’t there a portion of interference calls that is judgement based? It’s not a cut-and-dry call like tags, fair/foul, strikes, etc…
"Don't tell me it's impossible. Be honest and tell me you can't do it. Tell me you don't know how."
but this was a really bad call
Not sure what Davidson was thinking.
Hopefully karma prevails
and the Jays take the series tomorrow. As stupid as Davidson’s call was, the Jays also blew tons of opportunities to take this game before that incident.
The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
Wasn't this guy the same guy who blew what I believe was the most obvious 3rd base line fair/foul call ever?
I think it was during a Marlins game last season?
Ball.
Seems like an ump that likes attention.
by Nadia on Apr 10, 2011 2:48 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Oh wow. Thats awful.
Why doesn’t MLB address these things?
Jose Bautista has a higher midi-chlorian count than you do.
I'm sure they do...
There’s just no congressional hearing and oodles of media coverage.
"Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman
by Jeremiah Stanghini on Apr 10, 2011 5:16 AM EDT up reply actions
Yup right on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Davidson_%28umpire%29
Scroll down to the “Other Calls” section. His quote about it after the game tells you all you need to know about how much of a self-centered douche he is
Jose Bautista has a higher midi-chlorian count than you do.
You know, I can excuse umpires for making mistakes
That fair/foul call was difficult, and it could’ve been a mistaken that was made by any number of umpires.
But last night’s call on of runner interference by Davidson was intentional. It is something that he had to have thought of, then decided, in order to call something that never happened.
by Minor Leaguer on Apr 10, 2011 9:45 AM EDT up reply actions
I think he had money on the Halos
Mob ties, MLB look into it!
Even an error may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement
by TonyFernandezSavedMyLife on Apr 10, 2011 10:31 AM EDT up reply actions
Boooooo
That sucked. Jo-Jo better go deep tomorrow.
by Nadia on Apr 10, 2011 2:47 AM EDT via mobile reply actions
As much as I hate Davidson's call
I think the Jays need to take some responsibility for the loss. They hit 3-for-23 with runners in scoring position. If just one of those had crossed the plate, it never would have made it to the 13th inning in the first place.
They did get runners across the plate in the 13th
The ump blew it.
You’re right that they could have won it before then, but they could have lost before then as well. They battled to keep it a tie until the play was made to get Lind home, but the ump made a bad call and took that good play away from them.
"Don't tell me it's impossible. Be honest and tell me you can't do it. Tell me you don't know how."
by wroth91 on Apr 10, 2011 3:14 AM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
I agree, the ump blew it big time
I’m just saying that not all the blame should be put on the call. The Jays could have, and should have won it earlier. The runner they did get across in the 13th was on an error, not a hit. If they continue hitting 3 for 23 with RISP, this is going to be a long season. (But they won’t. This whole game was from the twilight zone, and probably has no basis in reality.)
Ugh.
3 for 23 with RISP is not getting it done. The ump is definitely at fault but the game should never have gotten that far. Too early to panic but hope the Jays improve in that area in future games. They’ve battled hard in every game but that is awful.
by transmogrifier on Apr 10, 2011 9:55 AM EDT up reply actions
As any "sane" athlete will tell you...
The game should never hinge on the call of one person, official, or umpire. The people who are paid to do this job are, believe it or not, human. As such, there are bound to be errors, from time-to-time. Athletes will tell you that they play their hardest to tip the scales of the game in their favo[u]r, so that when errors like tonight’s happen, it doesn’t (cost) the team the game. [As an analogy, think of political polling when they cite the numbers, they always give you the statistics with regard to their error. Sometimes they are right on with their numbers, but their more confident when they can give you a range.]
I’ll admit, when I used to play very competitive baseball, I would get right in the umpire’s grill after what I thought was a bad call in the strikezone or when I was “incorrectly” called out for stealing a base when I never felt a tag. I would also let the call eat away at me for innings after it happened. I think it’s okay to ask the umpire in the moment about the call, but don’t let it carryover into other innings and affect your play. I also think the same should apply to fans… Don’t let one call three innings ago affect your enjoyment of the innings that follow. Once the next pitch is thrown, that (blown) call is no longer a blown call. It is simply, the way it happened.
Umpires, believe it or not, do not have vendettas against one team or another. Yes, it may seem that way, but really, they are just trying to do their job and call a fair game. They know that there are upwards of 100,000 (if you include fans of both teams and all of the media-ites who cover the games) people who could potentially see their mistakes and make them look completely partial.
As the play unfolded and I listened to Buck and Pat call the play, I watched, (and prayed?) that the call would somehow get reversed, but as is so often the case, the umpires will stick together. This is usually the case because the other umpires weren’t watching the other guy do his job because they depend on that guy to do his job (while they’re busy doing their job!)
It may be a bit cliched to reference last year’s (blunder) committed by Jim Joyce as tonight’s game was not near the level of magnitude as that one, but I hope that we, as fans, can treat the umpires more like Armando Galarraga and less like Lou Piniella.
"Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman
by Jeremiah Stanghini on Apr 10, 2011 5:38 AM EDT reply actions
At least Joyce was apologetic about it after
Davidson takes pride in being wrong
To Infinity. And BEYOND!!!
by YunelTheLazyLatino on Apr 10, 2011 9:59 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I'll reiterate
There is a difference between blown calls (mistakes like seeing a strike on the corner for a ball, calling someone safe but they were really out by a fraction of a second, or a ball hugging the line being called fair despite it being foul) and BS calls like runner interference from last night.
Blown calls are really just mistakes based on judgement time and missing a close play—umpires are humans and they make a bunch of mistakes. Bob Davidson is one of the poorer (I won’t use the “w” word) umpires in the MLB and probably makes more than his fair share of these blown calls compared to a better umpire.
However, the runner interference call was not a blown call. It wasn’t like it happened so fast or was so close that he reacted instinctively and made the wrong call. It wasn’t something that we can argue that “well it was really only clear after the replay”. It was a call of runner interference—Davidson must have had to stop and think and replay Escobar’s run in his mind before calling it. Unless in his mind he remembered the scene as Escobar running from second to third flailing his arms and balking like a chicken before punching Callaspo in the face a couple of time to distract him, that should not even have been a call. He could’ve stood there and not said a word, not made a gesture, and he would not have made a wrong call. He could have let the run score and no one, including Callaspo and Scioscia would have run out and complain about runner interfefrence.
Davidson just felt like making that call for the hell of it. Why? To bring attention to himself maybe? To avoid going home to face the wife ’cause he messed up somehow? Because he had put Dan Haren as a RP in his fantasy baseball game last night?
And OK maybe he got a little excited… it was a weird back-and-forth game, it was the 13th inning, it was opening weekend for the Angels, whatever, and made that call. A decent umpire should’ve recognized at that point that he had made a really stupid call, and he could’ve easily asked his three peers for help. It wasn’t like a safe/out or fair/foul call that changes the play by changing the behaviour of runners or fielders. The play was stopped and he made the call. It would’ve easily been reversed.
I rarely, rarely bash umpires for making blown calls. But this wasn’t a blown call. When Davidson admits his mistake and seeks forgiveness from the Toronto players and fans, I probably will forgive him. But he won’t. I know he won’t.
by Minor Leaguer on Apr 10, 2011 10:02 AM EDT up reply actions
I still haven't seen it, I was listening to the radio
But Jerry and Alan both agreed with the call.
There She Gooooooes!
by Rugged Rock on Apr 10, 2011 10:14 AM EDT up reply actions
I have to think you could watch 100 MLB games without seeing one interference call. If the ump is actually going to make that call, it should at least be debatable. Based on the video I saw nothing whatsoever.
My opinion: Anderson saw the play earlier in the week where a Jay hung around for an extra second in the shortstop’s sightline, didn’t like it, and took it on himself to be extra ‘vigilant’.
I've been looking at the sky
by Back In Black on Apr 10, 2011 11:45 AM EDT up reply actions
I'm with you, Minor Leaguer
Champions never blame the officials for a loss. They suck up the bad calls and move on. They know that these things even out over the course of the season.
Blaming the umpires is a bad habit to get into because it sends the message that: the players don’t control the outcome of the game! They’re helpless! If they lose, well, it’s the officials’ fault.
In this game the Jays had plenty of chances to win, but they screwed up with RISP and defensively. It wasn’t the fault of the umps that the Jays couldn’t get Bautista home from third with nobody out.
by Defense Counts! on Apr 10, 2011 11:54 AM EDT up reply actions
Im not mletting the Jays off the hook in this one. We left mountains of baserunners on base and couldn’t do anything.
Our bullpen gave up one run in like 10 innings and even then Rausch should have been out of the inning on the liner by Bourjos
Doesn’t mean Im not still going to be pissed by such poor umping. Especially considering his strikes zones in the first game.
I think you'll find I'm universally recognised as a mature and responsible adult.
Twitter is the thing with all the tweets...
6 for 10 would be a great average…. unless it is your fielding pct. E5 strikes again.
by Al Bundy is my hero on Apr 10, 2011 7:34 AM EDT reply actions
How is Lawrie doing?
In AAA?
by Kingofcalgary on Apr 10, 2011 8:59 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
only 3 games
but he’s been great – .417/.400/.750, with 2 doubles and a triple
"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman
We also didn’t have Escobar for a large part of the game.. And, I hope, eventually, we’ll only have one of E5 or Rivera batting.
by Nadia on Apr 10, 2011 9:36 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I love how Halos Heaven doesn’t even mention the call in their recap.
by Nadia on Apr 10, 2011 9:38 AM EDT via mobile reply actions
Video of Bad Call?
Any link to a video of Davidson’s bad call last night?
I just watched it
And according to what I see, the 3rd baseman had to go around Escobar. Sorry, I think it is the right call.
There She Gooooooes!
by Rugged Rock on Apr 10, 2011 10:16 AM EDT up reply actions
He didn’t have to Escobar wasn’t there yet. He could have ran directly towards the ball and Escobar then would have to avoid the fielder.
Its not Escobars fault that the fielder didn’t have the proper fielding sense to go directly for the ball instead of looking, pausing and then going around him.
I think you'll find I'm universally recognised as a mature and responsible adult.
Twitter is the thing with all the tweets...
In plays like this the fielder has the right of way. He had it, but took it upon himself to wait and then go around Escobar. That shouldn’t have been interference
I think you'll find I'm universally recognised as a mature and responsible adult.
Twitter is the thing with all the tweets...
Jays should send the playto the Commissioners office
And have them explain what Escobar should have done.
It was crazy how the Jays got out of first and 3rd with no one out twice in extra innings. The bullpen has been great so far!
Agreed. Even Rausch deserved better there. That liner Snider should have caught, but he broke in and then fell
I think you'll find I'm universally recognised as a mature and responsible adult.
Twitter is the thing with all the tweets...
Just our luck that one of their fastest guys was on base, too.
by Nadia on Apr 10, 2011 11:18 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
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