Thursday, October 13, 2005
In The Umpire's Defense...
We're really not sure what this signal indicates...
...but apparently A.J. knows.
The key here is Josh Paul's reaction. He simply ran off the field, suspecting nothing was wrong. If he thought in any way that the ball had hit the ground before settling into his glove, he'd have tagged Pierzynski out as so often happens if there's any question. Paul had no question. But to be fair, he should have done it anyway.
And did umpire Doug Eddings really signal an out? Looks to us like he signaled "strike three"...which it was. Now, we didn't actually see this game, so we don't know what kind of "mechanics", as he called it, he used to call strikes. But an umpire would indeed call a strike on that play to indicate that...well, that it was strike three. But we think a viewing of Baseball Tonight will help settle that matter.
So even we really don't know where we stand. All we did was hear the screeching of the tires while we were in the kitchen cleaning a dish, so we came out to see afterwards. And in the end, it just makes things even more interesting, dontcha think?
• Oh, and Reggie Sanders has 12 RBI's in the first four playoff games this season. He is the first player to have multi-RBI games in four straight postseason games. And the Cardinals cruised to a 5-2 win over Houston to take a 1-0 lead in the NLCS, keeping alive a now-eight-game winning streak by the home team in the NLCS between these two teams.
