It’s a nice Monday night, the Padres are cruising to a win up seven in the 7th and here comes Fernando Tatis Jr. up with the bases loaded. The count gets up to 3-0 and if you know baseball that usually means you’ve got a red light on the swing. Tatis on the other hand drives the ball to right and into the seats for a grand slam to put the Padres up 11. Chris Woodward and the Rangers didn’t like it and showed their frustration at Manny Machado during the game and in their post game remarks. Ian Gibaut threw behind Machado and because of that is suspended for three games (he is appealing). Woodward is suspended for a game (served Tuesday) because of the pitch.
Woodward in his postgame interview said “I didn’t like it, personally. You’re up by seven in the eighth inning; it’s typically not a good time to swing 3–0. It’s kind of the way we were all raised in the game…” Woodward must have a short memory because when he was on the Dodgers he himself hit a two-run home run on a 3-0 pitch in a six run game, so it comes down to “do as I say not as I do.”Tatis then on Tuesday went out and stole 3rd while his team was up six. This time though the game was only in the 4th so it wasn’t as bad.
I am loving all this. I wasn’t a big fan of Tatis coming into this season. I haven’t seen much of him and I truly didn’t know anything about him besides he was a big prospect last year. My take on this is that baseball games aren’t over until you get the final out. In other sports you can run out the clock and get away with the win when you have a big lead. In baseball you have to get every out. Look at the Yankees-Orioles game from April 2017, the Yankees came back from 9-1 and 11-4 deficits to win 14-11 in extra innings. It is never over so you better put as many runs as you can on the board to make sure you don’t lose the lead.