Baseball Bizarreness
Last night's Dodger/Giants game featured a truly unusual PLAY.
This is odd, too:
The madness started one batter after James Loney broke a scoreless tie with a two-out sixth-inning single off Giants starter Matt Cain. Casey Blake followed with a double down the left-field line, sending Loney to third base. When Giants left fielder Fred Lewis misplayed the ball along the edge of the box seats, Dodgers third-base coach Larry Bowa waived Loney to the plate. Lewis recovered in time to get the ball to shortstop Omar Vizquel, who relayed the throw home to Bengie Molina to get Loney out by at least 15 feet.I saw the play. Saying he was out by fifteen feet is insulting to tape measures everywhere. The ball got to Vizquel as Loney was rounding third. Omar took his time and "made sure of himself," otherwise Loney would have been out by 70 feet or so.But third base umpire Angel Campos already had called the ball dead before Loney was thrown out. Campos saw that Lewis had bobbled the ball and knocked it up along the padding that separates the box seats from the playing field.
Originally, the umpires gathered to send Loney back to third base and keep Blake at second because the ball went out of play. But after more discussions, it was decided that Loney was eligible to get the base he was headed toward plus an extra base (home). Blake was sent to third.
This is odd, too:
Chan Ho Park followed Johnson (1-0) with 13 scoreless innings. Jonathan Broxton, who has taken over the closer's role with Takashi Saito on the disabled list, got the last four outs for his fifth save.That's a lot of scoreless innings. Oh, and it's also a typo. Try "1 1/3" on for size.
