Throwing Strikes

And a play befitting the NL Central

In the same season that Will Venable was drafted by the Padres, his father Max joined the organization as a minor league coach. I think it was the following March, during Spring Training 2006, that Padres coaches and staff had a dinner-and-bowling excursion. Teams and lane assignments were posted that morning on the same bulletin board where the players’ daily schedules, hitting groups, and bullpen sessions could be found. Think it got competitive?

At one point in the evening, a crowd gathered behind one lane. I walked over to see Max in the midst of a run of seven straight strikes. With each successive strike, the gang of spectators grew.

It can be hard to impress a room full of retired pro athletes. That performance gave Max bragging rights for the rest of the spring. I wonder if the White Sox went bowling this spring.

Can We Get A Ruling?

Did you see this play? Check it out.

It took place two weeks ago during a midweek day game in Pittsburgh. As the video above shows (I think it should work, but I don’t fully trust it yet), Cardinals designated hitter Willson Contreras hits a sky-high pop-up just out in front of the plate. Things go wrong immediately for Pirates catcher Joey Bart. He struggles to locate the ball off the bat, then fails fundamentally as he never turns around (to account for how the spin will draw the ball back to the infield). First baseman Endy Rodríguez charges hard in pursuit of the pop-up. Meanwhile, with two outs, lead baserunner Thomas Saggese is running on contact from second base.

Bart and Rodríguez collide — Bart drifting with his mitt open; Rodríguez in full stride closing on the ball — and the first baseman lands atop his catcher, causing a two-Pirate pileup. Unintentionally, they remain strewn across the baseline.

Saggese approaches and — seemingly unsure of how to proceed — tiptoes around the roadblock onto the infield grass. The ball rolls slowly away from the fallen Buccos, directly in front of home plate. Third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, who had tracked the batted ball but yielded to his teammates, never gives up on the play. He scoops up the loose ball and applies the tag to Saggese just before the runner can touch home plate. The game remains scoreless in the eighth inning.

The Pirates ultimately won, 2-1, in 13 innings. Clearly, this run mattered, though it’s debatable how much any run really matters in a battle between these two teams this year. This play may have more meaning inside both organizations six months from now because of its impact on draft order.

My feeling was that Saggese, who went out of his way twice to avoid Cardinals fielders, should have run through the Pirates, essentially drawing contact and forcing the umpires to rule obstruction.

Rule 6.01(h) states:

“After a fielder has made an attempt to field a ball and missed, he can no longer be in the ‘act of fielding’ the ball. For example: An infielder dives at a ground ball and the ball passes him and he continues to lie on the ground and delays the progress of the runner, he very likely has obstructed the runner.”

It takes Saggese about three seconds to travel the final 30 feet to home plate. Under normal circumstances, he makes that journey in a little over a second. The bang-bang play at the plate shouldn’t have been close.

I shared the video with a former MLB position player, hoping he might be able to recall any similar play. Even better, he shared my inquiry with a current MLB umpire.

That ump informed us that the play should have been ruled obstruction. (That certainly aligns with Rule 6.01(h).) Saggese should have been awarded home plate. The two Pirates in the baseline forced Saggese to go around him, and that’s enough for obstruction. Of course, it’s worth noting that the call still involves the umpires’ judgment.

Neither broadcast suggested obstruction, nor did Cardinals manager Oli Marmol even discuss the play with the home plate umpire. Perhaps the violent collision was a distraction. It’s the kind of play that usually results in one manager arguing so much he’s ejected. Instead, both sides continued on to the bottom half of the inning.