There I was, minding my own business while sucking
down a Steel Toe along the rail at the Park Tavern. The Twins were on
the tube, which is usually a PT irrelevancy if there is a hockey game
being simultaneously telecast. The bar was busy for a pre-happy hour
Thursday, with most of my fellow patrons offering up unsolicited
critiques on the ineptitude of our out-manned home town heroes. The
more the viewers pounded down their Bud Lights, the louder their
opinions became, audible even to those on the other side of the room. I
was reminded of a T-shirt I saw in a Hayward store: "The smarter I sit
on this barstool, the longer I get." The TV audio was muted, but
eventually I got to the unfathomable point of thinking maybe I'd rather
be listening to Roy "The Boy" Smalley give one of his patented four
minute answers to a simple question.
By the time Twins manager
Paul Molitor had brought in long reliever Michael "Gulf Of" Tonkin as
the sacrificial lamb out of the bullpen, the Twins were hopelessly
behind. In the tavern, only those without jobs to go back to were
left. The chairs to my right were all empty, and only the three seats
to my immediate left were occupied. So far I had not joined in the
banter, which in a sick way was more entertainment than our team was
providing. Tonkin wasted no time putting runners at the corners, but
had the next batter in an 0-2 hole. His third pitch was a knee high
fast ball for a third strike, but the pitch crossed up catcher Kurt
Suzuki, who probably had signaled for a breaking ball. The pitch
clanked off Suzuki's mitt, allowing the runners to advance.
The
man next to me cried out, "That's an error on Suzuki! E-2!" One of
his buddies agreed, further opining that Suzuki should at least be
demoted to Rochester for his miscue, if not summarily given his outright
release. Their friend at the far end begged to differ, insisting that,
even though the pitch was knee high in the strike zone, Tonkin should
be charged with a wild pitch.
I knew better, especially since I
had already tabbed out and was seconds away from leaving, but for some
foolish reason (my own beer consumption?) I had to set the record
straight. Therefore, instead of simply making my way out I took it upon
myself to inform the trio that, in fact, all of them were wrong. What
they witnessed was not a wild pitch, nor was it an error; it was a
passed ball. Things could have gone badly from that point -- I probably
would have kept my lip zipped if I were in Philly or the Bronx -- but
these guys actually nodded in agreement as they listened to my
rationale, or at least pretended to. I kept the explanation short,
about twenty or thirty seconds, bid them a good day and exited, stage
left. Whether they remembered any of it once the effects of the beers
had worn off, I'll never know.
My PT story is a springboard to
the rest of this post. I would hate to learn that any of you found
yourself in a similar discussion without being armed with the truth. So
as a public service, here is a much longer version which I wisely
decided not to tell my new-found, if momentary, friends at the PT.
Each
home team employs an official scorer, who is usually a retired baseball
writer. His job is to issue a ruling on every single play that occurs
throughout a game. Some official scorers have a tendency to be batter
friendly, meaning that on a play which could arguably be ruled either a
hit or an error (e.g., a short hop, sharply hit grounder which an
infielder tries unsuccessfully to glove backhanded), he will more often
than not award the batter a base hit. (Note: The official scorer for
the Baltimore Orioles, Mark Jacobson, is notorious for granting "cheap
hits" to O's batters. At least that's what Minnesota media members have
opined.) By necessity, if an official scorer is pro-batter, he is
therefore "anti-pitcher," because a base hit has direct and immediate
negative implications on the pitcher's stats, whereas an error does
not. Official scorers are supposed to be unbiased, just like umpires,
but the human element in performing their job is a factor.
When
a pitch gets by a catcher, that occurrence alone is never ruled an
error. The official scorer has the discretion of determining whether
the fault lies with the pitcher or the catcher. If the former it's a
wild pitch, if the latter it's a passed ball. As a general rule, if a
pitch is in the dirt the official scorer will call it a wild pitch.
Keep in mind that even a strike can be ruled a wild pitch, such as when a
batter swings and misses at a pitch (usually a slider or a cut
fastball) which nosedives into the dirt, allowing a baserunner to
advance. If a pitch gets past the catcher and, in the official scorer's
judgment, the catcher should have been able to latch on to it without
extraordinary effort, he will score the play a passed ball.
If
the catcher's failure to catch a pitch can't be ruled an error, then
what difference does it make whether the official scorer calls it a PB
or WP? The first answer is an obvious one. Baseball has always been a
game built on statistics, and statistics provide the measuring tool by
which we gauge performance. The number of WPs is one of many stats by
which pitchers are evaluated. The same goes for PBs when evaluating
catchers. The second answer has to do with ERA, i.e., a pitcher's
earned run average (number of earned runs per nine innings). If, in any
inning, a run scores which, in the opinion of the official scorer,
would not have scored but for a passed ball, the run will be
unearned (good for the pitcher). If the passed ball had, instead, been
ruled a wild pitch, the run will be earned (bad for the pitcher). Check
out the following scenario.
The
Twins have a runner, Trevor Plouffe, on second base with one out. Brian
Dozier is batting and the count is 1-1. Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura
unleashes an ankle-high slider with which Dozier tries in vain to
connect. Without hitting the dirt or the plate, the ball glances off
the mitt of Royals catcher Salvadore Perez and rolls to the backstop.
Plouffe prances into third base, standing up. On the next pitch, Dozier
lofts a fly ball to center fielder Lorenzo Cain, whose throw to the
plate is not in time to nail Plouffe, who had tagged up. The next Twins
batter, Byron Buxton, strikes out on three pitches for the third out.
Is Plouffe's run earned or unearned? The answer depends on whether the
official scorer ruled the play allowing Plouffe to take third a WP or a
PB. If it's a WP, the run is earned; if, instead, it's deemed a PB, the
run is unearned.
An example of
when it's useful to know whether a pitcher is prone to throwing WPs or a
catcher is prone to PBs has to do with base stealing. A baserunner
with decent but not great speed might wait several pitches for a WP or
PB before attempting a steal if he knows the pitcher and/or catcher are
likely candidates. In other words, why take a gamble with a base
stealing attempt if there is a decent chance of getting a free pass to
the next base via a WP or a PB? Another example would be a batter who
suspects that a pitcher will not throw a slider or cut fastball -- two
types of pitches which are often most effective when purposely headed
for the dirt right in front of the catcher -- with runners on base
because the pitcher does not trust his PB-prone catcher. In such a
case, the batter might "sit on" (i.e., wait for) a straight four seam
fastball.
Finally, you may be asking yourself
this question. If a passed ball has the same effect on ERA as does an
error, why don't we just call each passed ball an error? As they say on
WCCO News, "Good question!" The company line is that wild pitches and
passed balls are deemed to be part of the act of pitching, not
fielding. I call "balderdash!" The real answer lies in what I wrote
before in my July 17, 2014 post (Arbitrary And Capricious Traditions)
about baseball tradition. Most of it is sacrosanct. We've been
separating passed balls from errors for over a century. Why change now?
No comments:
Post a Comment