"Marisnick hits one deeeep to left field!!!" It was 280 feet and 40 feet to the left of the LF foul pole.
Oh man, someone mentioned it recently, but that last play reiterates just how glacially slow Matt Dominguez is. Looked like he was running in cold jello pudding between 3rd and home.
The speed at which Dominguez got to home and the speed at which Gonzales got to second on that play probably set some sort of slowness record for 5 bases traveled.
So, as it turns out, in some cases the catcher IS allowed to block the plate before he receives the ball.
I hope the Grossman batting leadoff is just a temporary thing. Him drawing all those walks and taking all those pitches reinforces him failing to take advantage of some hittable pitches at times.
If he keeps drawing walks and getting on base, leave him there. Altuve, Fowler, Springer, Carter, Singleton following a high on base guy? Sign me up for that
Right, the drawing walks, getting on base and seeing a lot of pitches seems to define the prototypical leadoff hitter.
Absolutely I'm not confident Grossman will keep doing that, but if he does that is the perfect lead off man
I agree with Porter that his 11 pitch at bat to start the game last night really helped set the tone for the rest of the night.
Grossman/Fowler/Springer? I've always liked Grossman as a 1-2-9 hitter, this team is way short on guys that can work a count without striking out.
MLB has to revisit this rule in the offseason. I'm for doing whatever you can to avoid violent collisions at the plate, but right now, no one seems to have any clue as to what's allowable and what's not and the way it has been called this season has not been consistent. It seems to me that MLB has tried to serve two masters with this rule. They're trying to quiet the critics that think home plate collisions are too violent while also trying to keep the old school "baseball men" from squawking about how soft the sport has become.
One of my few complaints about him back in the day was I used to b**** about Ausmus setting up way inside or outside and utilizing the "swipe tag". "Block the damn plate" I said. Little did I know.
I'll be interested to hear the umpire's reasoning on allowing the out call to stand. The catcher's foot was clearly blocking Dominguez's path to the plate prior to him receiving the throw. I'm all for the out call in that situation, but they need to be consistent in applying the rule and that should have been a safe call as I understand the rule.
