He may not be quite as effective if he has to pitch two days in a row.
The Giants go to the 9th with the dreaded 6-run lead…keeping my fingers crossed…
(of course, it’s not a 6-0 lead, so I’m sure they’ll be just fine)
Any thoughts about Matt Holliday’s late slide last night? He didn’t start sliding until he was at the bag; the first thing his body touched was the top of the bag, and he landed on the left field side of second base while crashing into Scutaro’s left leg.
In Bochy’s postgame comments he mentions a rule change for sliding, supposedly to protect middle infielders, but I couldn’t easily find info. The second baseman is particularly vulnerable.
Scutaro’s x-rays were negative, but slo-mo replays, especially the angle from the third base camera, showed his left ankle extremely bent in an awkward angle. Giants fans know what Scutaro means to this team. Losing him would be worse than the Yankees losing Jeter, given what each has contributed to their teams this season.
One more thing: I think Scutaro goes for MRIs today. I worry about soft tissue damage.
As a Cardinals fan I thought it was dirty. Holliday always plays tough, and is a very good take-out slider. Normally he stays just this side of dirty, but I think this time he went just over the line.
Scutaro got the best revenge with his bases-loaded hit (which, IIRC, Holliday even mis-played for some additional karmic payback).
Hopefully Scutaro is OK.
As a Giants fan, I’m not ready to call it a dirty play. Holliday did creep close to that thin line separating good, hard play and dirty play - he didn’t overtly blow past that thin line.
Not a fan of either team, but I did catch that play while I was making dinner last night. My first thought seeing it live was “dirty”, and on replay it was more like “wow, not that they would ever do this even if it was just the regular season, but I’d kind of like to see Holliday ejected for something that dangerous and unnecessary”. You couldn’t even pretend that slide had anything to do with the normal play of getting to second base, he had arms up around Scutaro’s knees, and it was generally just an attempt to tackle him. I get all the old timey “how the game is played” stuff, but that was at the point of intentionally putting a guy at unnecessary and high risk of injury, and that shouldn’t be a part of how any sport is played, this century.
On the radio this morning I heard that Scutaro’s X-Ray and/or MRI (I can’t recall which) was negative, but I haven’t heard whether or not he’s expected to start tomorrow.
One the bright side it brought up a bunch old takeout slide videos today. Saw one from Mike Shannon, a great one from Joe Morgan, and the mother of all takeout slides from Hal McRae.
They’ve actually changed the interpretation of the rule so you can’t do that kind of shit anymore. Frankly, I think now the appropriate call would be to call interference AND eject the runner from the game.
A good hard takeout slide is fine, but that was bullshit.
Yes, Holliday’s slide was a dirty play. Would I have done it if I were him? Maybe, although I hope I would have slid a bit earlier and carried on past the base, rather than start the slide past the base. I like to see that competitiveness in pros, but it was still dirty.
Holliday himself says he wishes he had slid a bit earlier, but that he doesn’t regret trying to break up the DP. I think that’s pretty much exactly right.
I’m not sure about the major league interpretation of interference with intent to break up a DP (I only ump Little League, although we use the same rule book). But legally, if your slide is within arm’s length of the bag, you’re ok.
Whether it was **dirty **or not is another question, and those issues are decided by The Unwritten Rules of Baseball.
Nick Swisher benched for game three. Brett Gardner will lead off and play left field while Ichiro shifts to right. A-Rod remains on the bench.
I’ve never liked A Rod, but he sure isn’t the ONLY Yankee who’s been feeble at the plate. A lot of guys deserve to be benched.
Right. Cano has been ice cold and Granderson isn’t hitting at all either aside from that home run in game five against the Orioles. They need to find a way to get to Verlander (or at least stay even until he’s out of the game) and win this one.
3 and 2 on…Ibanez…
Got him. Many, many baseball fans are very happy.
w00t!
Myself included. A terrific pitch. Coke, apparently, is It.
(Well, Verlander is **really **It, but the line doesn’t work so well that way.)