You’ve seen the play, read and watched the pundits weigh in, felt the heat of the controversy.
Just think how much hotter the Trea Turner call would have gotten if Houston had won the game.
Turner, batting with Yan Gomes on first base, nobody out, Nationals up a run, 3-2, hit a dribbler in front of the plate, fielded by reliever Brad Peacock, who threw a cutter in the direction of first baseman Yuli Gurriel that forced Gurriel’s glove into Turner as Turner’s foot was hitting the first-base bag.
Gomes advanced to third, and Turner was on his way to second, when home-plate umpire Sam Holbrook signaled that Turner was out, for interference.
Instead of Washington having runners on second and third with no outs, Gomes was back at first, and there was one out.
Big difference there.
MLB chief baseball officer Joe Torre would insist after the game that Turner was called out because he prevented Gurriel from being able to catch the ball at first base, apparently unaware – or just unwilling to concede – that Turner had already passed Gurriel and was hitting the bag as the ball arrived.
Nats manager Davey Martinez tried to request a protest, initiating a lengthy review that fans at Minute Maid Park and watching on TV at home would have assumed was related to the substance of the call, but was in fact a reading of the rule regarding whether or not an interference call can be the subject of a protest, which, no, can’t do that.
As that was going on, Astros manager A.J. Hinch brought in another reliever, Will Harris, who, after the delay, induced a first-pitch popup from Adam Eaton.
So, now, it’s worse. What should have been a second and third, no out situation has turned, with a bad call and a first-pitch popup, into runner on first, two outs.
Bringing up Anthony Rendon, who had gotten Washington on the board in the first with a two-out single.
Rendon took a first-pitch cutter for a ball, then got a mistake from Harris – a 91-mph cutter that Harris had intended to start outside and ride back over the outside corner, but instead started in the zone and cut back to the heart of the plate.
The mistake was turned into a two-run homer by Rendon, making it 5-2 Washington, breathing room for the Nats on their way to a 7-2 win.
If Rendon doesn’t hit that 1-0 pitch into the night, who knows, Houston, down a run, gets a bloop and a bomb, wins the game, the Series, and then baseball is dealing with a championship being decided by the misapplication of a stupid rule that for some reason the rules of the game don’t allow to be reviewed.
Rendon, to his credit, was Joe Cool there.
“I didn’t actually see the play happen,” he told reporters afterward. “I was sitting in the dugout getting ready to go on deck. And then once they showed the replay on the big screen, then I was like, Oh. I was a little bit more surprised than I guess I had anticipated.
“But it is what it is. We’re all human. We’re not perfect people. So, we’ve got to take our punches and just continue to go out there. No one is going to feel sorry for us. So, we’ve just got to keep on playing.”
Martinez, between innings, got into a heated argument with the umpiring crew and was ejected, the first World Series ejection since Atlanta Braves skipper Bobby Cox was tossed from Game 6 of the 1996 Series.
Funny coincidence there: that Braves team had won the first two games of that Series on the road in Yankee Stadium, then lost the next three in Atlanta, and after Cox was ejected in the fifth inning for arguing a botched call that took a Braves runner out of scoring position, Atlanta would go on to lose, 3-2.
Reporters tried several times to get Martinez to address the substance of the Turner call after the game, but he took the high road.
“You know, I don’t really want to make this about me and take away what the boys did tonight. They played really well. I mean, Rendon stepped up big, Adam Eaton, all of them. The defense, the hustling, Strasburg, Doo coming in getting a couple big outs for us,” Martinez said.
“Let’s just come back tomorrow. We’re going to Game 7. It’s a lot of fun. Let’s come back tomorrow and do it again.”
Story by Chris Graham
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Chris Graham
