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Flashback to April 9, 2011: the Blue Jays, headed by John Farrell and wearing those ugly jerseys, were facing the Angels in an early west coast trip. It was a Saturday night and the game started at 9 pm Eastern and ended five hours and three minutes later with an Angels walkoff win in the 14th inning.
I don't remember many details about the game, like who hit the game-winning single off Jon Rauch. (It was Angels leadoff hitter Maicer Izturis of course.) But I still retain the vivid memory of what happened in the top of the 13th inning. In the words of hugo, "Insanity. Utter insanity. We wuz robbed."
Setting up the situation in the top of the 13th, game tied 5-5, the Blue Jays had two runners on, Adam Lind at third and Yunel Escobar at second. The crappy and expensive third baseman Edwin Encarnacion was up at bat with two outs and hit a slow four-bouncer to the shortstop position. With the runners going on contact, the Angels' third baseman Alberto Callaspo cut in front of the shortstop and fielded the ball and barehanded it to first, not in time to catch "E5", who hustled down the line for once. Adam Lind scores the go-ahead run and the Jays lead 6-5.
But then Bob Davidson, the third base umpire, came in and called Escobar out at third for interference of Callaspo. As a runner, Escobar would have needed to yield to the fielder if he was in close proximity to the ball but in this case, I just don't see how Escobar could have affected Callaspo's fielding enough to warrant the interference call.
I'm a little ticked off that, despite asking to save the GameThread in the comments, I didn't actually put in the link and now the post is likely lost forever. But as I remember it, we (or just I) completely lost it that night. It was late, I was tired, the game was crappy, and the guy who took the triple play away from the Blue Jays in the World Series took a potential win away from the Jays.
On Thursday, the same two teams played each other and, in an albeit much lower leverage situation, the Blue Jays caught a break on a clear case of interference. In the bottom of the third, with Steve Tolleson at first, Josh Donaldson swung-and-missed then stepped across the plate to block the Angels' catcher from throwing to second on Tolleson's stolen base attempt. Donaldson was called out on strikes, but Tolleson should have been called out due to the batter's interference with the catcher.
Now, the next two batters also struck out so the Angels didn't hurt as much from this missed call as the Blue Jays from the game four years ago, so are the Blue Jays and Angels now even on bad calls (or lack thereof) on interference? Or is it still not even because a go-ahead run was taken away from Toronto in an extra-inning game?
I'd say that, since one call went against the Jays and one went against the Angels, things are even despite the difference in the situation of the two calls. We are still allowed to dislike Bob Davidson though.