Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1450: Play Loud and Don’t Carry a Big Stick

Episode Date: October 30, 2019

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about a wild World Series Game 6, including a controversial interference call on Trea Turner, a strange conference call with New York, the ejection of Dave Martinez, the greatness of Stephen Strasburg, George Springer, Anthony Rendon, and Juan Soto, bat-carrying briefly becoming the new bat-flipping, a Max Scherzer sighting, […]

And nobody, nobody, no Let the old fall from our shoulders Don't carry it all, don't carry it all We are all our hands and holders Beneath this bold and brilliant sun And this I swear to all Good morning and welcome to episode 1450 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast, Fangraphs.com,

brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I am Sam Miller, ESPN, along with Ben lindbergh the ringer hello ben hello we are watching the final inning well presumably the final inning we'll see things could get crazy but we are watching the final half inning of game six of the world series there are two outs and someone carlos correa i think just doubled and he doubled near the top of the wall. And A.J. Hinch considered using a replay to see if it had actually gone over. Down by five in the bottom of the ninth. You would think, if what we have heard is true, you would actually prefer to have the runner on second in that situation.

Yes, that's true. Than to have him score. I mean, Kenley Jansen would balk this run home. That's right. Anyway, he didn score. I mean, Kenley Jansen would balk this run home. That's right. Anyway, he didn't, though. It was a double, and he would have lost that review, or I don't know. Maybe he would have won. I don't know.

Who can know anything about any call right now? Exactly. We're still digesting this, and we'll try to figure out what we think in real time. We're still eating it. We're literally'll try to figure out what we think in real time. We're still eating it. We're literally still eating it. I guess that's true. That's not even gotten to the digestion point yet. So this was wild, and we needed this, I think.

We needed a wild game in this World Series because this World Series was not really riveting, and we finally got one. We finally got kind of a classic game, not in terms of the final score, if the final score ends up being what it is as we're speaking right now, but in terms of eventfulness and newsworthiness and things to talk and blog about. We could almost do like a draft of the seventh inning in this game the way that we did of ALDS Game 5 in the 2015 series. It was almost that weird, maybe not quite that weird, but a lot to discuss for just one baseball game. And we hadn't even

planned to record, but we are doing kind of an emergency recording here. So. Oh my gosh. Did you see this Donald Trump tweet from 2012 that is now being retweeted no there's always a tweet what is it when here you go when strasburg is october 18 2012 when strasburg leaves the nationals for another team for more money will washington still like the decision to shut him down for his good okay i thought it might be about trey turn running in the baseline. From 2012, that would be something. Yeah. So if this ends, and we will report when it does any moment now, presumably, the Nationals won the game. They beat the Astros.

They fended off elimination yet again to force a game seven. I'm speaking. Yes, it is over now. So I can officially speak in the past tense. 7-2 Nationals. and a lot to discuss here. Great pitching performance, timely hitting, big hits, demonstrative actions, bat carrying, the opposite of bat flips. The new bat flip is the bat carry, but I guess we should start with the play. The play occupies us all

And it looked like it would be an even bigger deal It is a less big deal than it potentially could have been Except for one thing Which I'll get to maybe at the end of the discussion of this play Okay, so we'll start here And I don't know how long this will take But so first inning we get scoring again Just as the last time Verlander and Strasburg matched up

Nationals take the lead in the first Houston takes the lead back in the second So finally we've got a game where we've got some lead changes Because the Nationals then took the lead back again In the fifth on the Juan Soto homer So it was 3-2 Nationals at that point We go to the seventh inning and Jan Goms leads off the top of the seventh with a single and that brings up Trey Turner. So Trey Turner grounds out,

seems to ground out softly, as Game Day put it, from Peacock to Gurriel, and Turner is running. Well, we can talk about where he was running, but the upshot is that Peacock makes a wide throw. It pulls Gurriel's glove or hand into Turner, who is running up the baseline, and Gurriel's glove flies off. I don't know whether he helped sell that by ejecting it off his hand, but there's contact made with Turner, and Trey Turner is called out for interference by umpire Sam Holbrook. Because either you have runners on second and third with no out, where the Nationals are very likely to add on to their lead. Or you have runner on first and one out, which is not nearly as much of a threat. And I think the swing in win expectancy here was something like 14, 15 points.

So, you know, that's major. And that's not even, I mean, that's not even adjusting for the Nationals bullpen. Right. Yes. Which, I mean, at that point, we didn't know that Strasburg had two and a third more extremely efficient innings in him. But I mean, we're all nervous at that point with the Nationals having a one run lead. Right. Yes. So I'm trying to look up the figures here because my colleague Zach Cram looked it up. So it was Nationals going from 84% to win if the call stands and if Turner is out and there's a runner on first with one out versus 69.7% to win if you get the call reversed

or the call never made and runners in second and third with no outs. So big swing, obviously, made and runners in second and third with no outs so big swing obviously almost 15 swing in win expectancy in a must-win game this is a call that you rarely see made and we watched the the many replays and everyone was upset and the nationals were ready to protest the game except you can't actually protest this because it's an umpire judgment call. So it can't be reviewed. It can't be overturned, except that there is a very long replay review anyway. And it's still not entirely clear to me what was happening during that several minute delay, which I gathered from Verducci's report during the game that the umps were just like calling to hear what the rule was or something. That seems to be what he was saying.

Like, I don't know what the purpose of that extremely long call was. And maybe some of the post-game reporting will illuminate this, but there was no way for it to be reviewed. And in a way, if, I mean, if they had overturned this call that would have been even worse probably like no one's going to be happy in either case but you can't just make an exception and say it's reviewable this one time because it's world series game six and we don't want to screw this up so i don't know how much of this was just the umps like please save us like tell us something get us out of this situation I don't want to be in this situation. But they hung on for a really long time. And then the call stood as it had to, I think.

And then we got further hysterics after that. But I guess we should talk about the call itself and the play itself. All right. So, Ben, I'm going to ask you a question. And I hate to do this but i'm gonna demand a simple yes or no answer before we talk about it i know that you're not gonna give me one you're gonna fight and try hard not to and but i i'm demanding it okay i i think that i guess in the umpire's defense it's a bad rule it's a very bad rule it's just it's the only reason that that rule has survived 150 years of baseball

is that it's so rarely enforced it like you just it's it's so it's such a bad rule it's so frustrating it's so vague it's nonsensical you don't need you don't think there's no other place where the runner is not allowed to run in the way of a throw that doesn't make sense that's not in line with baseball the whole point of it is is very silly and it forces an extremely unnatural act i mean it makes sense for that route that you are supposed to take that you are theoretically supposed to take makes sense if you are in the left-handed batter's box and your follow-through takes you to the right side of the batting of the the first baseline but if you are a right-handed batter you cannot naturally run in that in that that lane that they give you.

And so nobody does. Nobody ever does. Nobody has ever. Nobody ever does. You would have to move off to the side and then come back to the bag. I mean, that's just, it's unthinkable. Nobody does it. Not, you know, one inning later, Jose Altuve got thrown out on a plate at third base.

And if you watched where he was running, he was even further left than Trey Turner. Everybody runs to the left, just to the left. Now, not on the grass. If your swing takes you way off where you're running on the grass in a severe way, then yeah, you probably need to straighten it up, especially if there's a play coming from behind you. But if you're just running to first on a play that isn't even a, you know, tap or to the catcher or anything like that, you're just going to run straight to the bag.

And that's what Trey Turner did. So the only way that that rule has survived all this time is that it almost never comes up. It's hardly ever enforced. It's only enforced if it's egregious. And the appropriate way to interpret that rule is if it's not super egregious, you just don't call it. And you certainly don't call it in a World Series changing moment like that. You don't have to go looking for the clever call, in my opinion, right there. So yeah, I thought it was a bad call. So, right, I saw, so there's the question of, do you do your job differently if it's World Series Game 6 or if it's some mostly meaningless game in May? And so I've seen a lot of people say, yeah, it's World Series Game 6, but you go with your gut and your judgment and you do the job the way that you would do it at any time. And call it as you see it and don't make an exception because it's World Series Game 6.

Now, I see the point there. On the other hand, this is a call that you so rarely make anyway that the bar has to be quite high for you to make this call. And, I mean, you could say, well, hey, if this is really a rule violation, if he really did do the thing you're not allowed to do, then you should be more strict about enforcing it in this situation. I mean, if you think that you're right, then you should go with your convictions because it's really important either way. But this just didn't seem to deviate enough from the typical play to call it, really. It's not even clear that, it's not even clear having watched it in slow motion whether he was even in violation of the rule. Now, the rule says, the rule covers the final 45 feet,

which then, that is just truly absurd. I mean, the idea that you're going to adjust within 45 feet to get on the other side when you're running from two feet, two or three feet left of the line because that's where your swing takes you is just so nonsensical. And so it says the final 45 feet. So sure, Trey Turner was definitely not in the lane at the 45 foot mark. But when the throw was coming, when the play was needing to be made, was he then out of

range? Even then, I can't tell. I mean, in slow motion, I couldn't really tell. Watching it multiple times, I couldn't really tell. So as an umpire to say that, you know, you saw it, I mean, hey, that's a courageous call. I mean, hey, that's a courageous call. But again, this wasn't even an outrageous or egregious violation of this supposed rule if it was a violation at all. And so it's just such an overaggressive call, I think.

I think so, too. And right, I guess by the letter of the law. Everybody hates that rule, too. It's every time you call it, everybody, it's poorly conceived. B, it's poorly written. And so I can hardly even, like, my eyes cross as I get halfway through the rule. It's like fielded to first base. Yeah. I could barely say even which rule it is.

It's like rule 5.09, parentheses, a, parentheses, 11. And I don't know where this text even starts. It's like part of this long chain of rules, subsections. So it says, and I guess there's the precedent to what I'm about to read is, I guess, there is interference if. And then it says, In running the last half of the distance from home base to first base, while the ball is being fielded to first base, he runs outside, parentheses, to the right of the three-foot line or inside, parentheses, to the left of the foul line. And in the umpire's judgment, in so doing, interferes with the fielder taking the throw at first base, in which case the ball is dead, semicolon, except that he may run outside parentheses to the right of the three-foot line or inside parentheses to the left of the foul line

to avoid a fielder attempting to field a bad hit ball. And? Yeah, and then there's a comment. Then there's a comment, which is actually, I think, is pretty crucial to this as well. Okay, so here comes the comment. The lines marking the three-foot lane are a part of that lane, and a batter-runner is required to have both feet within the three-foot lane or on the lines marking the lane the batter runner is permitted to exit the three-foot lane

by means of a step stride reach or slide in the immediate vicinity of first base for the sole purpose of touching first base yeah and so i just while you were reading that i just watched the play again the the shot coming right down the line. And, you know, again, as noted, if you want to put the 45 foot rule in effect, then yes, he was out of that at 45 feet. If you are only concerned with where he was when the ball was being fielded by the first baseman, which is, I believe, the only time that it matters because that's the only time you're interfering with the fielder, then he was basically right on the line of the thing, which it says the line is part of the lane, right?

And then it also says the batter-runner is permitted to exit the lane by means of a step, stride stride reach or slide in the immediate vicinity of first base for the sole purpose of touching first base and he was in the immediate vicinity of first base he was landing on the base and he had only a sole purpose of existence at that point which was touching first base and so he was not attempting to do anything other than touch first base. And so his at that point, I don't even know that. Again, I don't think that I think that you could make the case that he was legal by two different clauses in this rule. But even if he trying to parse this and struggling so much. And this comes up every now and then. And by the way, and then Jan Goms has to go back to first. How does that make sense? Huh. So maybe this will be the impetus to finally fix this thing, because like this play like capital trey turner play and granted it didn't end up swinging the game or the series fortunately but the scrutiny here the worst case scenario that could have come to pass

maybe we do actually get some clarification some re reworking here. And I don't know what the ideal way to rework this is. Like, can you just widen the lane so that the whole bag is inside the foul line? Like, does that make sense? Like, Kyle Schwarber tweeted, why put the bag in fair territory? Go and do the softball orange safety bag so we can make it clear where to touch the bag in foul territory? Go and do the softball orange safety bag so we can make it clear where to touch the bag in foul territory. Such a bad rule. There's no reason not to have the softball bag

except for that it looks dorky. But on the other hand, I also don't... My guess, this is completely speculative, 100% guess here, but my guess is that this rule dates back to when first baseman fielded the ball by just standing like on the bag, like two feet on the bag, like they hadn't figured out athleticism yet. And so they were just standing on the bag, fielding the throw.

And there was like, it was that runners were just getting in the first baseman's business on the bag. And so they made a rule that he had to go to the outside of the bag, basically. And that's just not really a problem anymore. So I don't know. That's just a guess. I don't even know why I felt like I needed to make that guess. It makes my whole argument weaker.

Kyle Schwarber, yeah. No, he knows the game. He's a ball player. Yeah. So yeah, let's go with that. Let's change it so that this does not come up. Because people are sending us examples of previous plays like last year's World Series Game 4, where there was a run scored on sort of a similar play and it was not interference and then someone also sent us the 1998 play where Chuck Knobloch stood there arguing and the run came around to score while he was arguing in ALCS game two and that was sort of a similar looking play and that was not called interference so I don't know this just I'd have

to break those down frame by frame to see if those were exactly the same, but probably similar enough. And there's just widespread confusion. I don't know that anyone in Houston knew what was going on during this long delay. And I don't know that people at the broadcast booth knew what was going on. Twitter was diving into rule books and everyone was trying to piece together what we knew and didn't know to try to decipher this thing. So let's just avoid this. Like we could probably just avoid having to have this conversation in the future. Right. And maybe this will be the thing that actually makes us straighten out this rule with semicolons and four parentheticals and nonsense.

colons and four parentheticals and nonsense so yeah it's really if if that is if that's the goal then it's really nice that this didn't end up mattering yes to either team because now nobody is going to be too defensive about it i mean yeah if the astros had ended up winning this game four to three and we were talking about this play then you would have everybody would be dug in on their partisan right decision and uh but now nobody nobody needs to defend it everybody can just think oh boy that's that was a bad feeling that we all had for 16 minutes of baseball we shouldn't feel that way yeah and i'm gonna say fortunately not that i i really have a rooting interest here but i think fortunately for everyone fortunately for well not the ast, but everyone but the Astros, Eaton popped out and then Anthony Rendon hit a two-run homer, which sort of didn't seal the game,

but gave the Nationals some breathing room and made it much less likely that this play would come back to bite them and be decisive. And ultimately it was not. They tacked on a couple more runs and they won 7-2. But that really took the pressure off. And I'm sure that lots of people who were sweating at the league office because they were envisioning this being the story of the game and the series forever and ever were pretty happy to have Rendon take that off the table more or less with one swing

and and who knows like maybe Will Harris gave up that home run because he had to wait forever for that pointless review clarification talking to New York and asking them to bail the umpires out so you know maybe he doesn't give up that home run if he gets to stay in his rhythm. That was the first run or runs he had allowed all postseason. He's been totally dependable. And then he gave up a home run to a really good hitter. But you never know whether that may have played a part in it. Mm-hmm.

And while that was all going on, we got the benefit of the sensitive, the hot mics that we were talking about with the umpires. We got that with Trey Turner, who was basically in the dugout demanding to speak to the supervisor, basically. He's like, can I speak to someone in charge here? He was audibly, very audibly, accusing Joe Torre, who was in the stands and is in charge of discipline and umpiring and everything. He said he was like hiding back there, like not wanting to give a ruling or have any part in this, which obviously I didn't see Joe Torre and can't confirm, but it was pretty amusing to hear Trey Turner just accusing a high ranking MLB executive of just like hanging his head and trying to avoid eye contact with everyone so that he did not have to be a part

of this. I just learned what ball don't lie actually means. Oh yeah. I have seen that phrase many many thousands of times and never quite got it I just thought oh that's one of those other sports and then everybody was tweeting it about Anthony Rendon hitting a home run. Yes. So I thought, how does that make, how does that play? I think I vaguely thought that it was like one of those things where like, you know, like that thing in baseball history where a guy said the ball hit his foot and the umpire was like, no, it didn't.

And he got the shoe polish, you know, like, you remember, you know that one? Yeah. So that's maybe what I thought, like you remember, you know that one? Yeah. So that's maybe what I thought, but that's not what it is. All right. Everybody else can go look it up. I've had to look it up myself. So I'll save anyone the trouble. It's like the idea that I have looked it up in the past, not tonight, but it's like the idea that the ball balances the karmic scales somehow.

So that if you get a foul called in your favor that you shouldn't have, then you'll miss the free throws just to kind of even the cosmic justice, basically. Exactly. Yeah. So I guess that's sort of what happened here. Maybe it was the bat not lying in this case. But anyway, that was wild. Not lying in this case. But anyway, that was wild. And I'm sure we're going to get emails about this, and I don't want to tell anyone not to email us. But on the other hand, if you do email us and break down this rule in great detail, I can't guarantee about this rule, it makes some part of my brain shut down almost. So I almost can't blame the umpires for screwing this up sometimes, except that it's their job. But they almost would have to screw it up sometimes unless they never called it ever, which maybe they just shouldn't do until they fix this somehow. All right. So, Ben, let me ask you a question. In the ninth inning, Steven Strasburg is pulled from the game and Sean Doolittle comes in.

At that point, Chip Hale was managing the team. Yeah. Do you think that there is any chance whatsoever, or maybe do you think there's a great chance, that Davey Martinez did not direct that pitching change? That Chip Hale actually was in charge and did make that pitching change? I doubt it. You do not right martinez probably in the clubhouse in the tunnel relaying something i would think but but lore lore is certainly that the ejected manager stays in contact up the tunnel and is still directing plays that is the. If that is the case, then I will retract. I did not at all like Strasburg being pulled from the game. Not only because of the sort of mythological elements of it. It's a World Series complete game. There might never be another one of those. There might

literally never be another one of those. And while I love Johnny Cueto, I don't think that, uh, I think that, uh, Steven Strasburg throwing the last world series, a complete game when the game is not especially tense and the pitch count is not especially high is as egregious a rejection of a personal achievement as pulling him from a no-hitter in similar circumstances. And so I didn't like that. But also, but beyond that, because who cares? Like completely who cares? Beyond that, you know, like there's a game tomorrow and you still only have, I mean, you could, I'm going to get to this in a minute, but you have like two pitchers you trust. Right. Maybe you, maybe you have one.

Sean Doolittle actually might be the only pitcher you trust. And I will make the case against everybody else in a moment. But Sean Doolittle might be the only person you can trust. And now it's very easy to say, oh, he's getting two outs. That's what, seven pitches. He'll be fine. But A, that's seven pitches and a warmup, which I don't know. I don't know how much that, I don't know if that costs him four pitches tomorrow. I don't know if it costs him 14. It's presumably cost him at least one though. But also you don't know if he's going to get those two outs. He might come in, give up, you know, walk the first two batters. And before you know it, you look up and

it's 17. And now you got a problem because he's, he doesn't have two innings in him tomorrow. Now, beyond that, I don't know who they trust tomorrow, presumably Max Scherzer, but the fact that Max Scherzer was warming today is really scary to me because it suggests the possibility that he's only got an inning or two at a time that they don't think that he's got seven innings in him and that he is just another reliever tomorrow. I don't know if that's true. Maybe they, I mean,

they'll presumably he'll start the game and maybe he's still pitching in the eighth. Maybe they don't even know. But the, I mean, if they were willing to take bullets out of Max Scherzer's arm for tomorrow, for today's game, that's weird. That's really weird. And it really raises the possibility that he is not actually a full starter tomorrow.

That's not conclusive. I might be totally wrong. I would say that the chances that him warming up mean that are maybe like 20% or 30% if I had to place some odds on it. But I don't know. I don't know if they can trust Max Scherzer. And plus, even if that's not the case, you still don't know. You don't know how he's going to wake up tomorrow.

Corbin, short rest. Sanchez, short rest sanchez short rest also is you know he's annabelle sanchez he's not he's not patrick corbin he's at a different level hudson got hit hard in his last start and his doesn't have nearly the the kind of length of dominance that sean doolittle has had in his career and then that's it that's the whole team we named them all so mean, I'm thinking that I would save every pitch I had. I mean, I'd pull Strasburg if I thought I could bring him back tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure that he is the one pitcher. I don't think Strasburg will pitch tomorrow. No. I saw people suggesting that.

I can't imagine. I mean, why would you want to? He's never done that, right? Why would you even want? Why would you want to? He's never done that, right? Why would you even want? I mean, he's a good pitcher, but to pitch the day after he went eight and a third, or even if it were seven or something, that would be wild.

I don't think, I mean, I don't think you would need to do that if you're in a situation where you need an inning that badly. I don't know that you're winning anyway, and I don't know that he's your best option. Like, how could you even project, even if he were physically able to do it and said he could do it how could you evaluate whether he would be effective at all in that situation i would have no way to judge and i i wouldn't want to throw him into that situation so so yeah you're talking about game seven i still got game six no i know no no i'm just saying though that if if you thought that chip hale was actually making the decisions in the ninth then you could say that the terrible call on trey turner actually could end up costing the nationals because it cost them

their manager in this game and then chip hale went and pulled strasburg in the ninth inning and you know said so that's i'm still talking about game six. you know he was breaking tackles here like i don't know exactly what he wanted to do other than i guess just get up close to the umpires and yell at them from a very short distance i've never like experienced that anger in my life like that level of anger so i i can't even put myself in that place but it's like what's the goal here like yeah no if i ever did feel that anger i could not be trusted to be around people and so it's crazy that he is that angry and also wants to get as close to his enemy as he can if i'm ever that angry ben i want you to i want you to drive me far away i will try chip hale was trying you don't have a driver's license no i don't

well chip hale was doing his best and I was wondering what was going through his head in that moment. Like, what percent of it is, oh, gosh, I don't want to have to manage the last couple innings of this incredibly crucial game and screw something up somehow. I don't know. He's a veteran baseball person. Maybe he felt perfectly equal to the task. But part of it is that part of it is just like concern for martinez who has had heart problems and you just don't want him to get so worked up like that because maybe you're worried about him another one is that like you

don't want him to i mean if he actually attacks the umpire or even makes some kind of inadvertent contact with him i don't know what he would have to do to get suspended for Game 7 of the World Series, but that was in play. I guess, can you appeal? Can a manager even appeal a suspension, I guess? I don't know. I don't know either. I don't know either.

And this is wild and irresponsible speculation, I don't know either. And I'm just, this is wild and irresponsible speculation, but there were two calls against Victor Robles that were, that seemed so bad to me at home plate today that they briefly passed my mind. I wonder if the umpires are mad at him because he flung the bat at one of the, you know, in the direction of one of the umpires yesterday. Probably not, almost certainly not. But, you know, you don't want Davey Martinez to like like you don't want him to spit in a in in his face basically right you don't want it to get to that point where you do something where now now now you're their enemy or even if you just bump him inadvertently because you're mid spin move like he almost did he he came very close to just ramming into him just because he was trying to get away from hail and he had so much momentum at that moment. It's interesting too that you're not allowed to make contact with the umpire and yet you usually get away with pushing your bench coach into the umpire. Like you can make him touch the umpire. things that i've been working i've been workshopping this this bit about how uh that one of the things about local government that i love the most is that uh if you have one of those old box tvs and

you put it in front of your house the city won't come pick it up but if you put it in front of your next door neighbor's house they will because now it's like been discarded and they have to go do it for the neighbor like they have to go remove it now it's a nuisance uh-huh chip hale is the box tv yeah i get it you can you can anyway so he probably mean he did what were you saying well i was saying he almost ran into him just because he he had escaped the the tackle essentially and he had broken out of Hale's grasp and he just managed to stop short and he was like jabbing his hand over the umpire's shoulder and it came so close I was like fretting like oh no don't don't do something you'll regret when you settle down and somehow get yourself out of game seven and so yeah that was uh and then A.J. Hinch was also upset, like, in the bottom half of the inning, I think. I don't know what specifically he was upset about. Probably the needless New York call that may have iced Harris. But everyone was mad because it seemed like the umpires didn't know what they were doing here.

And Take Me Out to the Ball Game was playing in the background as Martinez was just out of his mind here. So that was some scene, really. And I'm trying to sort of scan Twitter as we talk to see if there's anything that would change our minds about anything or clarify anything. And I see Craig Goldstein quote tweeted a two and a half minute video of Joe Torre trying to explain this to Ken Rosenthal. And Craig says, this cleared up absolutely nothing for me. So I'm guessing it wouldn't clear anything up for me. But I'm reading a Steve Phillips tweet now. explained that Turner was called out not because he was running out of the 45 foot line but because he interfered with Gurriel catching the ball the ball and Turner arrived at the same time at the base that is when Turner has the right to be in fair territory bad call says Steve Phillips and I'm like seeing

back-to-back tweets in the timeline with people defending the call and excoriating the call So it's one of those It's like, so here's Cliff Corcoran quote-tweeting That Steve Phillips tweet and saying If the fielder has the ball, he owns the baseline

If he doesn't, the runner owns the baseline That's the essence of obstruction Most recently codified in the home plate Collision rule, Turner arrived before the ball The baseline was his He should have been safe. So he's agreeing with Philips there. And I think agreeing with us, that is our take on this. as like 99% of other runs to first base, then probably your judgment should err on the side of let's treat that the way that we treat all of those other runs. There's a... Sometimes you'll have a play where the catcher has to throw down to first

and then the runner's in that lane. And that one is usually a lot easier to see when a runner is obstructing or interfering or whatever but mike kruko i think has said like that the important thing is if you're the catcher there and he's in your way is you have to make sure you hit the runner in the back because if you hit him it's interference but if you throw wildly then it's not and uh that's just that's that's the rule yeah it's a weird rule right yeah yeah i just i don't know where turner really could have gone because the throw was just like tailing across the the foul line and i guess i don't know like i probably wouldn't have been

i mean it it was only called because the throw was bad, right? Because the throw was wide, not because of where Turner was. It was called because he, you know, interfered with where the throw was. And I mean, you could say that, you know, Peacock gets the whole base, right? He doesn't have to throw it at Gurriel's chest. He gets anywhere that Gurriel is trying to catch it. But yeah, I mean, it was because the throw was wild. Okay, all right.

I don't think giving any of these tweets is changing my mind about anything or making my mind clear. So unless I see something else, I guess we will leave that there and hope that this rule is changed sometime soon. So, yes, the Max Scherzer warming up in – when was that? The 7th?

That was before the play? Yeah, before the play. Although he was still standing up in the 9th, and I don't know if that means he was throwing or not. So the only thing that I could think, other than just he warmed up unilaterally because he just always wants to be, yeah, that's Max. Unless it was that, I thought something that Joe Buck said, which is just that basically like you can't count on him to be ready tomorrow. So like he can pitch right now. His arm works.

His neck is not spasming. So let's use him while we have him, while he's available. But if that were it, that just doesn't make that much sense to me really because at that point, so was it still 3-2 at that point? I just don't know that like A, Max Scherzer healthy and 100%. I guess he is significantly better than Doolittle and Hudson for two innings. Like if it were 3-2, you'd rather have fully healthy Scherzer trying to finish it off than those guys. But A, Strasburg was still cruising and had a low pitch count and is a playoff god. So leave him in for a while until he runs into some

sort of trouble that's how the postseason works this year but also like yeah once the lead got larger then i just i don't even know what the marginal gain to bringing in scherzer in that spot over the couple of relievers who are fairly well-rested and whom you trust, and you don't really even know what Scherzer's condition is. Even if he says he's fine, is he actually 100%? Probably not, right? So what's the difference between Scherzer with sort of an iffy neck and rested good relievers? Probably not a huge difference. So why take the chance that you're costing yourself a Scherzer game 7

start unless, as you said, they just don't think that they can get a good start or a long start out of Max Scherzer in game 7, in which case I guess get to game 7 before you worry about game 7. But like if there's any chance, and the fact that Scherzer recovered this quickly

and he was available for this game, give him another 24 hours. I mean, maybe he takes a turn for the worse again. You can't really predict it, but you would guess that it's likelier that he gets better than gets worse, you would think. And if you get a good Max Scherzer start in game seven, that is huge.

That's a big advantage over Anibal Sanchez and and Patrick Corbin so really it just didn't make much sense to me for him to be warming up there unless unless he really just can't count on anything from Scherzer now and if that's the case then do you even really want him in that game at that time yeah yeah yeah so then strasburg you you brought this up already but yeah 106 pitches and at that point you have a 7-2 lead and no one's on base and i just i don't really know why you would make that change there because as you said there's some risk that doodle runs into a jam or you just want Doolittle fresh and you know Strasburg can get through the two outs or you have to expect that he can.

He hadn't even allowed a base runner in that inning, and it wasn't like his pitch count was so high by the standards of this postseason. In fact, he threw the 18th most pitches in a start in this postseason. Yeah. To go into the ninth. And I'm sure he's thrown more pitches in previous starts, right? He threw 114 in game two, right? So, yeah, I don't get it unless, you know, maybe he said. In fact, he's thrown three games where he threw more pitches than this in this postseason.

So if he said between innings, i'm out of gas i've got one more batter or something then sure but uh other than that i can't imagine why you would want to make that change there it just doesn't really make much sense to me but you know probably ultimately not that significant when did do a little pitch last do a little pitched on gosh so monday was an off day he did not pitch on sunday or he did 27th so Monday was an off day. He did not pitch on Sunday. Or he did pitch. October 27th. So that was two days ago.

So yeah, nothing. Yeah, he did pitch, right. Nothing. I got nothing. Yeah, I don't know. That was a weird one. And what else here? You had some great signature moments for Rendon, for Soto, for Bregman, as we thought at the time. So Bregman, since we started recording, has apologized for the bat carry,

which I would not have expected. A, it's not egregious, really. B, it's Bregman. I would not. Yeah, I think that you need. He's trying to defuse things. Yeah, you need to apologize so that you will quit getting owned, basically. Like if you, he, I think we need to be honest here.

Alex Bregman did not demonstrate good feel on that play. It was not a good look. And I don't mean because he showed up the game or because he disrespected anybody. I mean, it was like, it was a bad idea. It just didn't look good, right? And when you, and his coach didn't know it was like it was a bad idea it just didn't look good right and when you and his coach didn't know what's coming and when he fumbled the transfer and then the bats just like out on the field it was it was super dorky right and he never nobody has ever looked older at 24 than alex pregman right then jose alt like, oh. Oh, a bunch of them did.

Yeah, a bunch of them did. I mean, that was a really, it was a dud. It was weird. I don't know whether, like, did his brain just short circuit? And it's like, hey, I just maybe hit a game-winning homer in game six. And, oh, by the way, I didn't even realize I'm still carrying the bat. I better hand this thing off. Or was it actually, like, part of the celebration the celebration i don't know i don't know either i mean i thought he was gonna flip it at like uh the 45 foot mark yeah i thought that's when it was 45 foot and then i don't know i think he just

kind of had this feeling like it wouldn't be enough the timing's not right i'm just gonna i'm gonna delay the decision and it was awkward and it just set up soto for such a momentous momentous counter move i mean everything that brageman's wasn't soto's was i mean soto's looked so confident and it looked right and you understood the context of it. You understood the intent. You knew what the author was saying. And then he goes to his first base coach, who's also confused, it should be said. And rather than clumsily hand it off to him,

Soto drops it and it bounces up into the first base coach's hand. I believe I saw that. I think, forgive me. Crazy thing. I don't even know. Would Turner have beat that throw? I think Turner might have beat the throw.

Anyway, I'm watching it. They're showing the replay right in front of me over and over again. That's why. And so with Soto, and Soto's, the home run was such a home run. Oh yeah, that was. It's such a, such a massive home run. And I don't know. I mean, Bregman, I think Bregman, I don't know. I don't know. I don't want

to speak for what he was thinking, but if I were him in that moment, I might've been thinking, I want to have a signature bat flip here and you get kind of caught in between. And before you know it, you're doing something unprecedented and you're thinking is this it did yeah did i that nobody's done this is this is this the thing and you sort of convince yourself maybe this is the thing yeah maybe i found it because carlos correa up the empty with his like you know the the ear the hand to the ear and that was a new thing sort of and so you want to one-up Perea, maybe do your own signature thing. But this was not the thing. So he said in his apology, he said his emotions got the best of him.

He said he needed to apologize because it was not how I was raised to play the game. And then he was asked about Soto mimicking him, and he said he deserved it, which was probably true, if only just because it looked so awkward. And then Soto just had the perfect response as well. Not only the bat carry, which was the perfect response, but then his verbal response, which was, quote, I just thought it was pretty cool. I wanted to do it, which is just great. Oh, man. I love that. I love that guy. He made is just great. Yeah. So. Oh, man. I love that.

I love that guy. He made Alex Bregman look so old. Yeah. Alex Bregman's usually the one making people look old. He's the one who looks like perfectly in command of everything. Yeah. And yeah, the tables were turned. And to do it on the road, you know, soda.

Everything has happened on the road. Yeah. Do it on the road, you know, Soto. Everything has happened on the road. Yeah, so, yeah, the bat carry, not going to catch on, I guess. But this was wild, and as everyone pointed out, this is the first Best of Seven series in any sport, any of the major sports in North America with Best of Seven series where the road team has won six games, which is very unusual. Well, unprecedented and strange.

And we were complaining about it in our previous episode because we were saying it kind of takes the crowd out of the game and it makes it less of an entertaining spectator experience. But I didn't really get that sense in this game because a lot of it happened late and there were late rallies and big moments even late and the crowd was just so riled up by the play that it never got dead quiet so there were just

so many big moments like that Strasburg strikeout of Altuve with was that bases loaded? No it was second and third, right? Yeah. And it was three pitches, right? None of them fastballs.

Yeah, just like made him look silly. Altuve is like the guy that you probably want up in that spot, and he just totally wildly chased one. And Strasburg, he sort of cemented his postseason legend. He's just been absolute nails this postseason it's been fun to watch yeah it has it's it's I I love I love my favorite players tend to be the ones who are who seem like they're one good year away from being on a hall of fame track and one bad year away from from not or who seem like they're just right there on the edge because it feels like the stakes,

the historical stakes are so high with them. And so Strasburg has just been there for this year, and it's been a lot of fun to watch him. And like we said earlier, I think there's something really delightful and great about the fact that the greatest pitching prospect in history, the guy that we all knew as a college pitcher, who we knew before we'd ever seen him, who we were looking forward to, uh, and who had one of

the great debuts of all time that it, it nevertheless took him a decade basically to find his, you know, to find this, this peak. And, uh, it's great. I, I, I like weird aging curves and, um, I am kind of hoping that he's just good for his 30s now and that we finally get the payoff yeah right oh so you guys when i think meg completely blew my mind when she said that he's like four months younger than kershaw or something like that oh yeah i yeah i mentioned that i think that was me yeah yeah wow yeah or i think it i think i was repeating something bauman had observed oh Oh, that's right. Yeah, that is accurate.

Yeah, that's exactly right. That is one of the craziest. I mean, the juxtaposition of two players' ages is one of my favorite fun fact setups. But that might be the all-timer. Like I was not prepared for it at all. Yeah. By the way, just because it got lost in everything, but George Springer had another great game, is having another great series. He is now climbed to ninth

on the all-time championship win probability added leaderboard. And among hitters, he's what, like third or something? It's like basically Freeze and... And Freeze is retired now. And so it's, yeah, Pete Rose is just ahead of him. And Babe Ruth is up there. Babe Ruth's mostly come from pitching. Right, so it's, yeah, Pete Rose is just ahead of him, and Babe Ruth is up there. Babe Ruth's mostly come from pitching. Right, that's right, yeah.

So it's, yeah, Freeze, Rose, and Springer. Yeah. This is updated already? Yeah, real time. Holy cow. Dan Hirsch, he's pretty good. Yeah, so, oh, and the other thing was that Strasburg said that he was tipping his pitches in the first inning and that the Astros picked up on it.

So again, the eternal debate about whether the Astros are actually savants at picking up pitch tipping or whether everyone just thinks they are now. Either way, it's in their heads. And so I think he said that the Nationals pitching coach tipped him off to the potential tipping. I think he said that the Nationals pitching coach tipped him off to the potential tipping and that after that he started waving his glove, shaking his glove around to try to confuse the Astros. And he did not allow a run after that. So if that's the case, then the Astros maybe only scored off him at all because he was tipping in that first inning. only scored off him at all because he was tipping in that first inning. Yeah. It looked like he was tipping in the first inning.

Getting hit. So here's my question, Ben. Okay. If you had to bet on somebody to throw the final pitch of this World Series, who will it be? I guess I would have to say Roberto Osto osuna i oh you yeah uh yeah you think you don't think it's uh like if the astros are in it at the end you don't think it's garrett cole yeah it could be it's it's possible i don't know i just i don't know whether when you get to the point in the postseason where it's like oh we're going to bring in the ace because he's the ace. And I just don't know at what point it's actually the best thing to do. Like, is Garrett Cole with a career high innings on what, two days rest? Is he actually better than Roberto Osuna in that spot? I don't know. Probably, maybe.

better than Roberto Osuna in that spot I don't know probably maybe certainly like Cole as a reliever would be the best reliever in baseball you would think because he's already the best pitcher in baseball but I just when you start asking someone to do something that unusual it's almost like you're doing it for the narrative like for the satisfaction of having your ace on the mound like that's I think maybe part of the problem that dave roberts ran into with kershaw except that roberts is still thinking i think of kershaw as he was a few years ago like he's just not that guy anymore but that's the inclination it's like we want to have that guy on the mound for this moment so i don't know whether Colt would be ahead of Osuna on the depth chart, but certainly possible and also certainly possible that the Astros do not win the game. Yeah, I was going to say, you're also saying that they're greater than 50% to win.

They are. Not only greater than 50% to win, but greater than 50% to win not in a walk-off. Yeah. Because if they win in a walk-off than a national would still throw the final pitch. True. So do you think that one of these teams is favored? I don't, we don't have yet the fan graphs odds, but, uh, we don't, we obviously don't know Scherzer is either, you know, Scherzer could be all the way or Scherzer could be, you know, he throws three pitches, it locks up and then then he's gone. Given that it could very quickly turn into the Astros being clear favorites, assume Scherzer is healthy, starting, and does not have any unnatural restrictions on him. Who are you favoring in that matchup? I think it's really close in that case,

but I think that's almost like laboratory conditions that I wouldn't count on at all. I don't know. I'm looking at 538 right now, which seems to be updated. Has the Astros 52-48 over the Nationals. So, you know, a coin toss basically, but with home field advantage for Houston And I guess

Fangraphs is updated right because it Has the Astros as 60.3 Percent favorites Which is much higher but Fangraphs odds Have been higher pretty consistently At least the ones on their playoff odds page So I do think that The Astros are favored

They're the better team they're at home And the odds can't take this into account, but you can't expect ailment to the list. And, you know, three days ago, he couldn't move his arm. So I just don't know what he is. I would assume that he's good. And under normal circumstances, I'd rather have him than Granke certainly. And Granke has not inspired a lot of confidence in me this postseason, but he's very good, obviously. So it's close. But I'm glad that it's coming down to this. This is kind of fun. This has salvaged, I think, the series. I mean, who knows? Maybe it'll be a blowout and an unfun Game 7. But this very wild and memorable Game 6 to force a Game 7 with the chance of a comeback and the underdog winning and seven road wins in one series and uh yeah this has this has some narrative potential here yep i'm excited all right so i think that we've covered it here i am uh i apologize oh i have one more thing oh okay

very very very quick. All right. Do you remember when Adam Eaton got hit by the pitch on the foot? Yes. Yes. I'm 98% sure that the umpire Mike caught before the pitch came when it was on its way, caught Eaton going, aye, aye. How far from contact? I don't know like in the in the final 10 feet but before before the you know

that that the thought of contact uh-huh well that that's relatable right when you totally stub your toe and you know the pain is coming you say something before you actually feel it uh-huh yeah yeah all right well you didn't think we could do an hour on one game and uh we just about did so yeah this was really something all right so if you must send us your emails with your interpretations of that rule feel free but uh i'm not sure that you can change my mind because I think we all agree that the rule was bad and that the call was also probably a little bit bad given the rule. But if you must do it, just don't do it through the Patreon emailing system because we don't want to feel obligated to reply to you. Okay. Yeah.

Anyone who's not a Patreon supporter, we could safely ignore. No, we often answer those emails too, and we appreciate your non-financial support, but yes. All right. So that'll do it, and we'll be back shortly after game seven to wrap up this whole thing. Alright, so I'm sitting here just refreshing Twitter as the tweets continue to come in about the play, all about the where you have smart baseball people who I very much respect completely disagreeing about what the correct call was here. And even people who played the game like former major leaguers, professional players, just contradicting each other and interpreting this rule in completely opposite ways. It's hard to know whom to believe because this is one of those situations where you'd think you'd defer to the players who have been subject to this rule for years and years, and yet even they do not seem to be able to agree about what the correct call was here.

So I am very, very grateful and relieved that we can all agonize over this and debate it endlessly without having it stain the legacy of this world series and having it be a call that we talk about forever and hopefully we can just fix this and then we can all laugh about the day when we were all very confused because the rule as written is inherently confusing people are tweeting screenshots and videos and gifs and diagrams, self-made diagrams, showing what the path of the runner would have to be to conform to this rulebook language.

Anyway, first base inside the line, runner's lane outside the line. Tough to square these things. And I know this does get called this way sometimes, but not all the times, so we are lucky that we avoided an even worse situation here. We didn't even discuss Justin Verlander in this episode, I don't think. Of course, everyone is citing his continued winlessness in the World Series. Again, he was not great, but not terrible. Wasn't missing a lot of bats, obviously.

The first run that was scored against him was just sort of a product of positioning a weak ground ball. But then he did give up a couple home runs, which he is wont to do. That is how you score most of your runs against Justin Verlander this year, both in the regular season and the postseason. You hit homers against him. However, he is pretty good at making sure that those homers tend to be solo shots, as he did in game six. So I'm sure he would have liked to get this particular flaw removed from his record, but I would certainly have confidence handing the ball to Justin Verlander in a World Series start. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already pledged their support.

They are helping keep the podcast going and getting themselves access to some perks. Julie, Loco Sports, James Cubbin, Patrick Montuori, and Thomas Burton. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for me and Sam and Meg coming via email at podcastfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance,

and we will be back with one more episode this week after game seven. Talk to you then. To interfere, to interfere I don't have the right To interfere, to interfere I don't have the right To interfere, to interfere