Baseball Musings: Losing the Close Ones

June 10, 2007

Losing the Close Ones

Ted Lilly threw a pitch that hit Edgar Renteria in the second inning, then Ted was thrown out of the game. The ump believed the beaning was intentional, and Renteria later left the game with an injured hand from the pitch. The Cubs bullpen was thin after Marquis was knocked around yesterday, but Chicago took a 4-2 lead into the bottom of the eighth when Dempster got the ball. The Braves scored three to send Chicago to a 5-4 defeat.

The Cubs are now 3-13 in one run games. Tonight was their whole season in a microcosm. Nothing seems to break their way. The Cubs own a nice size run differential against their opponents, but the luck of the one-run games is keeping them down.

Posted by David Pinto at 11:16 PM | Games | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Jim Wolf (home plate umpire) was over the line in throwing Lilly out of the game. Yes, Lilly probably was throwing at Renteria, but when Wolf said to Piniella he was waiting for it to happen (picked up by an ESPN mic), it made it sound like he had tossed the pitcher even before the game began. That's extremely unprofessional. If Lilly is suspended, Jim Wolf ought to be as well.

Joe Morgan made a pretty good comment later on when the Atlanta pitcher threw inside to a Cubs batter: "I'm just trying to figure out how to decipher if that was intentional or not."

Posted by: Theron at June 11, 2007 12:22 AM

Not to mention the fact that Renteria should've been tossed for his slide into 2nd later that inning. He slid very late, with his studs aiming for the 2nd baseman's shin. He could easily have broken the kid's leg.

Posted by: Yankee Fan in Chicago at June 11, 2007 12:26 AM

There are a couple things odd about this:

(1) The players and managers were not warned before the game, making an ejection like this totally ridiculous.

(2) If Renteria didn't move towards the pitcher after being hit, it definitely wouldn't have been an issue.

(3) It was in the first inning.

(4) I heard it while listening on the radio and I loathe to say Tim McCarver had a good point. He started on the "let the player's police themselves" joint, which I tend to not get 100% behind, but he put an interesting spin on it, basically saying let the pitcher and batter go out at it, if it even gets midly out of control the four umps should be there to break it up. Anybody else that comes into the fray, leaves the bench, leaves the bullpen, etc. gets fined $100,000.

This works for me.

Anyway, more to the point, Jim Wolf killed the Cubs here. Not only did they lose their starting pitcher in the first inning, they spent their bullpen and will probably have to make a roster move to rotate somebody fresh in. Totally unacceptable.

Posted by: Bill K at June 11, 2007 12:35 AM

I agree, I saw the incident and was shocked when Lilly got tossed. As a Mets fan I was pissed, since the Braves managed to pick up a game yesterday. Bad example of an umpire doing his darnedest to help decide a game...

Posted by: bp32 at June 11, 2007 08:50 AM

Call me in the minority, but I believe if you throw a baseball at someone intentionally, you should get tossed. You don't need an official warning from an umpire first - your warning not to throw at people comes from little league. And the law. Every pitcher misses his spot by more than 12 inches at least once every night they pitch. 12 inches from Renteria's hands is his head.

We put umpires on the field to make hundreds of judgement calls each night. If in his judgement, Lilly threw at Renteria on purpose, he should have been tossed. The only unfortunate part is that, if the ump truly "knew" it was going to happen, he couldn't toss Lilly BEFORE he actually threw at someone.

Jim Wolf didn't kill the Cubs, Lilly killed the Cubs.

Posted by: Mike at June 11, 2007 12:20 PM

IF this was intended as retaliation for Soriano's HBP after three homeruns, it would have been better to do it in the same game, not a day later. Possibly Lilly and the Cubs thought they had a free pass and that hitting Renteria with 2 outs would only draw a warning rather than an ejection. If the umpire truly believed Lilly was throwing at Renteria, he did the right thing.

I'm not sure whether Renteria injured his hand when he was hit by Lilly's pitch or on his hard slide into 2b and his contact with Fontenot. If the latter, there is some poetic justice and the finish of that slide was really uncalled for.

Then again, a week earlier, Mike Lowell delivered a hard body block to Robinson Cano trying to break up a DP and the announcers thought that was a clean play within the rules. The play was within the rules but ARod was criticized just the day before for trying to break up the DP in much the same fashion.

I'm not sure there is a consistent standard applied by either announcers or players. They seem to think they know what is appropriate and what isn't when they see it. Any many times that opinion seems influenced by who is involved.

I certainly know that Pierzynski is guilty every time he's involved......:)
bill

Posted by: Bill McKinley at June 11, 2007 12:35 PM

Are you sure they weren't warned before the game? The greedy bums at fox blacked out the game I wanted to watch (and then showed celebrity golf instead) so I was forced to watch the cubs-braves game on saturday. In the first few innings the color announcer went on and on about how the home plate umpire in that game had issued an early warning. He said specifically that if the warning hadn't been issued, marquis would have hit one of the braves in retribution and Jones' home run would have scored more runs.

Wolf is a terrible umpire- his incompetence behind the plate cost my team a game already this year- but the warning from saturday should have been enough even if he didn't warn them sunday. But I would imagine that if it was something he was expecting, that he would have gone through the formality of issuing a warning.

Posted by: SleepyCA at June 11, 2007 12:35 PM

Sleepy,

Peter Gammons explicitly said that there were no warnings prior to the game. Wolf should be suspended for this, he was entirely out-of-line, and with the Cubs playing for nearly 3 straight weeks, his actions have put an undue hindrance on the team. (bullpen is completely taxed)

Posted by: Santos Sorrow at June 11, 2007 12:40 PM

i have no problem with lilly getting tossed for throwing at renteria IF hudson had been tossed for obviously head hunting soriano the day before. the inconsistency is what makes things horrible here. wolf's comment wasn't helpful, was amazingly unprofessional, but is probably the way that most umpires go into tense games like this. as usual, it's not bad calls that frustrate so much as completely inconsistent treatment. bad calls even out. inconsistent application of the rules leads to games being ruined.

that said, renteria late sliding and giving fontenot a forearm shiver was ridiculous. hard slides and pop up slides are one thing. he basically threw a punch, and nothing happened. the cubs had their hands tied, and since it was the last game of the year between the teams renteria gets away with it. pathetic.

Posted by: bwan at June 11, 2007 12:58 PM

For Bill McKinley above, when Lowell rammed Cano it was not a DP at 2B pivot, Cano had to tag Lowell in the basepath half way to 2B and as Lowell said after the game:"I did just what the Yanks taught me to do when I was in their farm system". A-Rod's play that Boston disputed was in a previous series at 2B when he went in a little high into Pedroia on a DP pivot. These are not duplicate plays.
Todays sliders couldn't compare to the football blocks thrown at 2B by Roger Maris, Frank Robinson, and Don Baylor. Baylor actually ruined one 2B player's career. For the all-time dirty slide check films of Yank Johnny Lindell hurtling into Card's Whitey Kurowski at 3B in the 1943 WS.

Posted by: Bob S at June 11, 2007 11:26 PM

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