Important stuff from a 7-1 LOLcopter crash in San Francisco
/That was something. And then it wasn't! And then it was something else entirely, and it became that new thing with an intensity entirely ill-fitting of a Wednesday afternoon game. After around 10 minutes of review of a new rule that no one has a clue how to interpret, Jose Quintana went from one out away from seven shutout frames in San Francisco--kinda as impressive as kicking over an empty trash can, but still an important task--to watching Ronald Belisario lay waste to rational disorder. Again.
With runners on first and third and one out in the seventh, Jose Abreu scooped a Joe Panik grounder, fired home to Tyler Flowers in more than enough time for him to tag out Gregor Blanco. The umpires reviewed the play forever, and then decided Flowers' foot was blocking the plate that Blanco was decidedly beaten to, and reversed the call, causing all of Robin Ventura's skin to catch fire and delay the game further. In a final moment of fury, Ventura decided Ronald Belisario would be better at finishing out the inning than Quintana at 90 pitches, and was wrong. 7-1 wrong, though it was kind of window dressing by the end.
-Here's what Jose Quintana did to get charged with four earned runs in the seventh inning:
Got Pablo Sandoval to fly out
Gave up a line-drive single to Mike Morse
Gave up a bloop single to Adam Duvall
Got Joe Panik to ground weakly to Jose Abreu
Walked Joaquin Arias (Ok, this was pretty bad)
Was replaced by Ronald Belisario without resistance
Watched Belisario allow three-straight hits
Watched Adam Dunn run over Leury Garcia and drop a fly ball
-About that dropped fly. Leury was rather inexplicably inserted into center field for Jordan Danks in the middle of the inning, seemingly just to add chaos. After Belisario had already bombed the game to hell, Javy Guerra came in and induced the third out of the seventh inning for the second time--a lazy fly into the right-center that Garcia (who rarely plays outfield) fail to forcefully call for a ball that Dunn (who plays even more rarely) was too tentative and unsure of his role to not run him over for,and the bobble away. It was amateurish and cost the Sox yet another run in a seven-run seventh, but man was it funny.
-Flowers was in the lane on the Panik grounder, but the throw and tag had Blanco easily beaten. All of the hair-thin judgment calls umpires are counted on to make on a play-to-play basis and they're not allowed to discern whether or not Flowers' foot placement actually is what kept Gregor Blanco to beat the tag?
-At least there was a Hall of Fame Robin Ventura tirade to be had out of everything. He screamed about how it was the same call that went against the Sox the previous night, and went Lou Piniella-style on the situation and kicked dirt on home plate for whatever reason one develops for kicking dirt on a plate. Ventura as a manager has mostly forced me to acclimate to someone entirely different than my childhood notions of my idol, but the fiery ball of Dad Rage he's grown to be has been pretty ideal.
-Adam Dunn has now homered in back-to-back games, which is rather amazing just because of how impossible it is to hit in San Francisco. Jose Abreu's power outage is of minimal concern until they work their way out of the ocean that team plays under.
Team Record: 57-63
Next game is Friday at 7:10pm CT on CSN vs. Toronto.
Follow The Catbird Seat on Twitter @TheCatbird_Seat