World Series: Rays - 1 Phillies - 1

The Tampa Bay Rays evened up the World Series last night at a game a piece by beating the Phillies 4-2. The Rays did so with small ball, scoring 3 of their runs on outs, and a little help from the umpires.

In the second inning Phillies starter Brett Myers, working with a 3-2 count, threw a slider low and off the plate to  Rocco Baldelli, who attempted to check his swing. Home plate umpire Kerwin Danley raised his hand as if he was going to call strike three, but he pointed to first, either to check with firstbase umpire Fieldin Culbreth or to indicate Baldelli checked his swing on ball four and should take his base.

“I didn’t think I went [around], and I just went to first,” said Baldelli, who had already started to jog down the line as Danley raised his arm. “I was facing [toward the field], so I didn’t see what was going on behind me. Kerwin asked for help down the first-base line, and as I was jogging to first, they said, ‘No swing.’ It was OK. I looked at it on film later and it didn’t look like I went. I thought the call was right.”

Baldelli’s walk lead to a run for the Rays.

Another call in the 9th inning really helped the Rays. With the Rays leading 4-1 in the top of the ninth Jimmy Rollins came to the plate with a runner on second and no out. David Price’s pitch appeared to graze Rollins uniform. Danley did not agree and did not award Rollins first base. Replays confirmed that the pitch did in fact hit Rollins uniform which is considered a hit by pitch and he should have been awarded first base. Rollins would eventually pop out to short. The Phillies would get one run in the inning before Price closed them out for a Rays win.

 Can’t say I feel bad for the Phillies, sometimes you just don’t get all the breaks.

This entry was posted on 24. October 2008 at 17:59 and is filed under MLB. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.