Well I think more accurately he was the guy with the simplest possible job and he focused on doing just that without paying much attention to anything but home plate and getting under the tag. Once he launched from 3rd looking or thinking about anything else can just slow him down.
Meanwhile, ref that brutal line from Slate, everybody else had a bigger more complicated job involving more players and they were just dumbfounded at the chaos.
In everybody’s defense, the nature of any high performance human endeavor is that as long as everything is unfolding according to well-rehearsed plans with known pre-identified decision points humans can keep up with very fast moving stuff. Even stuff that has lots of possible branches and outcomes in very rapid succession. Be that playing infield baseball, driving an F1 car at 200mph, kung fu fighting, whatever.
But when you suddenly have to ad lib after trying to understand a totally novel situation unfolding at the same fast pace, you’re mostly hosed. Which is why one of the advices in MLB after a play starts to go stupid is “put it in your pocket”. After recovering the ball from one error whether your’s or somebody else’s, you’re vastly more likely to make a second error in haste during a now-broken play than you are to make a miracle throw or catch that saves the day. So just hold onto the ball until the umpires stop play.
Forcing the batter out at first is key, correct? Had Craig or the catcher tagged Baez out, then the run would have counted if he scored before the tag…or no?
No; had Baez been tagged, the run would not have counted. Rule 5.08(a):
“A run is not scored if the runner advances to home base during a play in which the third out
is made (1) by the batter-runner before he touches first base; (2) by any runner being forced out; or (3) by a preceding runner who is declared out because he failed to
touch one of the bases.”
Note the difference in wording between examples 1 and 2. This is specifically to prevent EVERY batter-runner in such a situation from holding up halfway to first and refusing to go to first in the hopes the runner will score before he’s tagged. The Pirates should have ignored the runner going home.
Looks like Marcel Ozuna got arrested today. Domestic battery and strangulation.
His wife was arrested on similar charges last year so looks like this isn’t the perfect marriage. He plays MLB, however. I imagine he won’t be playing much ball for while.