It’s time for expanded replay in MLB NOW
The Tampa Bay Rays were the recipient of yet another really bad call by an umpire this season tonight. Now, at the end of the game the ruling at the time did not make a difference in the outcome, but this simply illustrates the problem with the game of baseball as it stands currently.
With the score Atlanta 3, Tampa 0, Hank Blalock is on third with 1 out when the Atlanta pitcher serves up a wild pitch. Blalock heads home and is tagged late as the pitcher covers the plate, but is called out. This is just another example of why the game of baseball is flawed.
I can’t watch every MLB team on television as I cover 28 NFL teams for various sites around the internet, but just as every other adult male in America, I saw the screw up with umpire James Joyce and Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga and the non perfect, perfect game. Bud Selig could have made the correct call and overturned Joyce in that game but as usual, he sat on his hands.
Selig and Umpires like Joe West who seem to take the game into their own hands, wish to speed up the game. Instead of speeding up the games, how about getting some calls correct first guys? Yesterday, a house caught fire in my neighborhood. Instead of neighbors checking on everyone, 50 people were angling with their cellphones and iPhones to capture pictures and video to send off on the internet and local news stations.It was quite sickening to watch as the house burned to the ground.
Why is it that fans in the stands of MLB games now have more technology in their pockets than is available to the umpiring crew of a MLB game? The camera angles are already there for the umpires to use. If I can see a streaker head on to Tropicana Field from three different camera angles, why can’t we review a call at the plate? Or a blatant case of fan interference?
I’m not advocating a radical change in balls and strikes behind the plate, but why can’t baseball institute a system like the NFL allows their head coaches? Give the managers a set criteria of what plays they could challenge, and give them the red flag and allow them up to two challenges a game. After all, aren’t we trying to speed up the game? Tonight’s fiasco with the bad call on Hank Blalock could have been avoided with Rays manager Joe Maddon tossing out the red flag, a video review and awarding the Rays with a run scored. Instead we have to go through this antiquated process of the manager running out on the field and strutting around the umpire shouting obscenities at one another for 12-15 minutes. Nothing is accomplished, the umpire assumes the position of a Supreme Court Justice and generally tosses the manager, and play proceeds with nothing changed.
In today’s world where you are video taped running a red light, taking money out at the ATM, exiting your hotel room, neighbors video your house burning to the ground and any or all of it can be posted to Youtube within minutes, don’t you think Major League Baseball could come into the 20th Century, let alone the 21st Century? Are you listening Bud Selig? No, it’s after 8pm, Wheel of Fortune is over and he’s napping.
Braves Bombed 10-4
Tampa Bay Rays P David Price again didn’t have his best stuff last night, but it didn’t matter. The Rays jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning and never looked back. Price only pitched 5 innings and surrendered 8 hits but struck out 7 and only allowed 2 earned runs, running his record to 10-2 which leads the AL.
3B Evan Longoria blasted his 12th home run of the year, a 429 foot drive into left in the 1st to get the Rays on the board first with a 2-0 lead following a 2 hour rain delay. All of Tampas starters logged a hit except for the pitchers spot and 4 Rays had a multi hit game.
SS Jason Bartlett will return to the lineup tonight after spending 15 days on the DL with a strained hamstring. In order to make room for Bartlett OF Justin Ruggiano has been optioned back to AAA Durham.
Tonight’s matchup features Wade Davis (5-6 4.91) going against Tommy Hanson (6-3 3.69) Hanson’s record is a bit deceiving though, his ERA at home is nearly 3 runs higher than on the road, (5.40 home 2.34 away)
See David Price comment on last night’s game and his AL leading 10th win right here.
Rays look to Rebound in Atlanta
When I was a teenager, the Atlanta Braves were my favorite team. Florida had no baseball teams, Atlanta was the closest team and virtually all their games were broadcast on WTBS. In those days the Braves were perennial losers, several years logging in the worst record in baseball. I have fond memories of my childhood watching nearly every day rooting for players like Dale Murphy, Bob Horner, Claudell Washington who had the always present toothpick in his mouth. C Bruce “Eggs” Benedict behind the plate catching pitchers like Rick Mahler, Rick Camp and Steve Bedrosian. Bedrosian by the way, just saw his son Cameron selected in last weeks amateur baseball draft by the Los Angeles Angels.
The Braves eventually put together a great team, with the bedrock being an incredible pitching staff and a world class manager in Bobby Cox. In 1998 though, my allegiance changed with the creation of the then Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The early days of the Rays franchise were dark as Vince Naimoli took a page out of Hugh Culverhouse’s business plan on how to operate a sports franchise in the Bay area.
But just like the Braves, the Rays have assembled a very strong team revolving around a young, strong armed pitching staff with dynamic players all around the diamond and a cerebral eclectic manager in Joe Maddon. Any rooting interests for Atlanta are long gone and they are now nothing more than another team to dispatch with on the Rays march towards returning to the playoffs and eventually the World Series.
Tampa starts their 3 game series tonight in Atlanta with a share of the best record in baseball and the best road record at 22-8. The good guys have AL win leader David Price on the mound tonight and the Braves are rolling out Kenshin Kawakami who is winless on the year. The New York Yankees, who have a share of the AL East with the Rays are taking on the Philadelphia Phillies in a rematch of last years World Series.
