Phillies' Little League Base Running Results in a Double Play
Sometimes, you watch a baseball highlight, and then you spend the rest of the day wondering why the theme from “The Benny Hill Show” is stuck in your head.
Like, for example, this double play the Red Sox pulled off against the Phillies in the third inning Monday night to get out of a two-on, one-out jam.
Ahhh, yes. The rare double TOOTBLAN.
or as we say in the biz, a TWOTBLAN. pic.twitter.com/qcU1a478ZP
— Cut4 (@Cut4) July 31, 2018
The play-by-play describes it as “(Carlos) Santana grounded into double play, third to catcher to shortstop to third, (Odubel) Herrera out at second, (Rhys) Hoskins out at third, Santana to first.”
Although considering how the Phillies descended into a level of play worthy of the kind of Little League team that poor Bob from Bob’s Auto Parts is embarrassed to sponsor, one wonders if Santana had a black magic woman in the stands putting a curse on the play.
Santana hit a routine grounder to third baseman Eduardo Nunez, who went for the out at home, throwing the ball to catcher Sandy Leon.
Leon then had Hoskins dead to rights in a rundown, which so far does not qualify as anything terribly unusual; Hoskins had decided to take his chances scoring on the grounder and got caught. Bad play, but not an inexcusable play.
Herrera, on the other hand, got it in his head that he could take advantage of the rundown in order to sneak over to third base, leaving the Phillies in a position where instead of having runners on first and third with one out, they’d have runners on first and third with two out.
Trouble was, Xander Bogaerts moved over to cover third from shortstop and was in the fun position of being able to casually tag Herrera out without having to concern himself with Hoskins scoring while he waited.
Did Herrera take the moment to turn on his heels and run back to second, in the best case distracting Bogaerts long enough for Hoskins to score even if he himself was subsequently thrown out?
Nope, he just ran headlong into the tag like a cavalryman running his own horse onto a braced pikeman in a medieval battle.
The rest of the rundown was academic. Double play, inning over, Benny Hill music available.
Put it in your scorebook as a 5-2-6-5 inning-ending sequence.
Where things really get infuriating for the fans is in examining the results of the game.
Had Hoskins scored, the Phils would’ve taken a 2-0 lead.
Instead, they lost 2-1 in 13 innings.
And if any part of this pathetic sequence had gone differently, it might not have cost them the game.
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