Baseball Musings: Turning Point

October 22, 2007

Turning Point

Paul Hoynes posts the game 7, especially the Skinner hold:

They trailed, 3-2, but Jake Westbrook was hot, and the offense, after two games of doing nothing, was stirring.
Kenny Lofton, with one out in the seventh, lifted a fly ball to short left field against Hideki Okajima. Shortstop Julio Lugo went back but dropped the ball as Lofton hustled into second. Franklin Gutierrez, fouling off two 1-2 pitches, sent a single past third.

It bounced hard off the grandstand in foul territory and back into left field where Manny Ramirez was waiting. Lofton was already at third, and the ball was still rolling in the outfield. The game should have been tied, but third base coach Joel Skinner stopped Lofton.

It was a mistake that will live in Indians postseason history right alongside Orel Hershiser losing his release point in Game 1 of the 1995 World Series.

All the momentum the Indians had been gathering was pointed to that moment. When it produced nothing, the Indians disappeared into the October night not to be seen again until mid-February in Winter Haven, Fla.

"It's a tough corner out there when the ball heads that way," said Tribe manager Eric Wedge. "It's tough to read if it's ricocheting back to the shortstop to left-center. I think it was just tough for him to read."

Having seen the play a few more times, Skinner's mistake was not realizing that Manny Ramirez switched personalities. The brilliant defender who nailed the throw to second base in Lofton's previous at bat went back to the auditioning for the role of Adbul-Jabbar in the remake of Airplane. Manny wasn't hustling after the ball. If Manny is going full steam toward it, holding Lofton was a much better call. But Manny was content to let the run score. Skinner had a split second to make his decision, and it cost the Indians a tie.

Then again, given the way the Red Sox pounded the ball in the eighth, it probably didn't matter.

Posted by David Pinto at 09:12 AM | League Championship Series | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Hey David,

I don't get why you keep acting as if that play did not matter. The play killed the morale of the team. It was an awful call, and in a game of this importance, you can't make mental mistakes like that.

The Indians' heart was broken. Blake made that embarrassing error the next inning, and I don't see how you can't partly attribute that error and the subsequent abnormal behavior (the additional poor fielding, Lofton jogging to balls, Betancourt seemingly lacking interest, etc) of the players to Skinner's mistake.

People have to take the criticism along with the praise.

-Kevin

Posted by: Kevin at October 22, 2007 10:44 AM

The Indians deserved to lose if their spirit was that easily broken. Blake doesn't deserve to come back if that's the case. Most professional athletes are so hyper competitive that you can't stand to be around them. To give up that easily down one run is inexcusable. It should take a lot more than a bad call by the third base coach to break a team.

Posted by: David Pinto at October 22, 2007 11:01 AM

I don't think it was a broken will or whatnot that caused Blake to blow the play. Remember, Ellisbury's about as fast as they come and Blake had know that it was going to be a close play no matter what.

Posted by: Jacques at October 22, 2007 11:37 AM

Actually, I think it was the same Manny in both cases, with a very good sense of whether he had a chance to throw the runner out or not. He read Lofton's wall-shot perfectly, let it bounce back to him, fielded it quickly and efficiently (bare-hand catch, pump once into his glove to solidify his grip, then throw a rocket in), and got the ball to second as Lofton was sliding in. The play in the seventh was odd because Manny knew he couldn't throw out Lofton at home, and Skinner didn't; it's funny (as long as you're not an Indians fan) because Skinner had Lofton *past* third base, with momentum, saw the ball kicking into no-man's-land, and guessed wrong -- badly wrong -- about how close it would be to anyone.

Wonder if he was thinking about Manny's arm from the fifth, instead of watching Manny's location at that moment...

Posted by: Chris at October 22, 2007 11:44 AM

Chris is right. He said as much post-game, that he'd throw it to "Julio and let him deal with it".

It was a split-second decision that went the wrong way. That said, nobody can make any grand statements with any certainty as to what would have happened next. Either way.

Posted by: Jay at October 22, 2007 11:55 AM

Why is that when ballplayers make mistakes, fans are so quick to say that they 'lack interest' and aren't playing hard? I guarantee that Betancourt was very interested in the game!

I agree with David- if thier spirit was that easily broken, they deserved to lose. I'd go one further: if thier spirit was that easily broken, they would have been done playing a couple of weeks ago.

Posted by: Tom at October 22, 2007 01:13 PM

Totally agree with David. If your spirit gets broken in the biggest game of your life because your 3rd base coach holds a runner at third (with 1 out, no less), and at least two more innings to play, you don't deserve to be on a major league ballfield. That's an absolute joke of an excuse.

Posted by: Mike at October 22, 2007 04:20 PM

I agree with David, if their spirit was that easily broken then they don't belong there. The Redsox could have folded when Lugo made that stupid error on the popup. The game was looking pretty bleak at that point but Sox came back and did what they do best. Pedroia the Destroia was great. The little man that stepped up with a big jack.

Posted by: emains at October 22, 2007 07:15 PM

I'm not sure if the team's spirit was broken at that point but Blake sure didn't have his head straight after grounding into the inning ending double play with Lofton still on 3rd as his badly botched play showed.

Posted by: JR at October 22, 2007 09:00 PM

Why is it that some have to look for a scapegoat whenever an important series ends. More than 60 years later Johnny Pesky still is asked about letting Enos Slaughter score the WS winner when in truth, Pesky had to wait on a sub CF (in place of Dom DiMag) to get Pesky the ball and even a cannon wouldn't then have gotten the Country Boy at home. If someone wants to blame any Indian just look at Sabathia & Carmona. They should have done much better.

Posted by: Bob S at October 22, 2007 09:25 PM

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