Saturday, October 13, 2012

Cardinals Have No Right to Advance Any Farther

The St. Louis Cardinals advanced to the NLCS late last night after beating the Washington Nationals in a miraculous comeback. Closer Drew Storen had the Cardinals down to their last strike when he threw two balls and walked two batters in a row. The poor pitching by Washington and the luckiest call in the postseason is why the Cardinals have reached the NLCS and deserve to go home after that. Why?

In the Wild Card play-in game about a week back, there was the most controversial call in at least this year's playoffs, possibly the the most controversial call in the history of the postseason. When Braves shortstop Anderton Simmons popped a ball up in the eighth inning rally against the Cardinals, shortstop Pete Kozma and Matt Holiday looked at each other expecting other one to catch the can of corn. Kozma backed away from the ball allowing Holiday to catch who was standing ten feet away. The play happened when the Braves were down 6-3 and there were runners on first and second. Veteren umpire, Sam Holbrook, the left field ump signaled that the ball was an infield fly meaning that Kozma was camped under the ball at its climax. The call was late and wrong. All the base runners were confused and Freddy Gonzalez came bolting out of the dugout to argue the call. After the sellout crowd figured out what had happened a responded by tossing beer bottles and other items onto the field causing an 19-minute delay as the grounds crew had to clean up the field. Do we now need replacement umps?

Here is the problems with that call:

1. Pete Kozma was not camped under the ball at its climax and was not under the ball when it fell.

2. The call was too late to be correct. It needs to be called earlier to protect the base runner and let them know what is going on.

3. Is it really the left field ump's call? There is no rule against it yet but when the ball is out that far it is the left fielders' ball and not the shortstops'.

If this call wasn't blown the outcome of the game could be completely different. The Cardinals got lucky when the Braves had three errors of their own allowing them to score. Although the Braves didn't play like a playoff type team, nor did the Cardinals. The Cardinals took advantage of that and had only one solid hit in the entire game. If Drew Storen could throw some more strikes the Cardinals wouldn't be in the position they are in right now. This is all due to the infield fly call heard 'round the world.

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