Watch: World Series champs win game after 1 of the worst infield 'errors' ever
There’s arguably nothing more painful in baseball then losing a game due to an unforced and boneheaded play.
When a game ends on a base hit or home run, there’s a feeling that the win was legitimate. Sure, the pain is still there, but it can add some closure to know that one team won because — at least for part of the game — it played better than the opposition.
On Saturday night in Houston, it was difficult to say which team played better. Both the defending World Series champion Astros and the San Diego Padres had six hits (the Astros’ last hit came with an asterisk, but more on that later). Both teams also got great pitching, and the game was scoreless though nine-and-a-half innings.
However, disaster struck for the Padres in the bottom of the tenth, though it was not the fault of relief pitcher Phil Maton. With two outs and a runner on second, it looked as though Maton was going to get out of the inning and send the game to the eleventh.
Maton threw a 3-2 fastball to Astros third baseman Alex Bregman and got him to pop it high up in the infield. The ball traveled about 35 feet in the air, though it barely made it up the first-base line.
Padres first baseman Eric Hosmer sprinted to where he thought the ball would land, but overran it by about five feet. The ball missed his glove and landed on the infield grass.
Good things can happen when you put the ball in play. ¯_(ツ)_/¯#walkoff pic.twitter.com/wKJRkLrM7i
— MLB (@MLB) April 8, 2018
The runner on second — Derek Fisher — already had a jump start on a 3-2 pitch with two outs, so he was able to score the winning run easily, giving Houston a 1-0 extra-innings victory.
As noted by MLB.com, all Hosmer could do was sink his head in disbelief at what had happened.
“That’s my ball all the way,” he said after the game. “I just overran it, put my head down, tried to run in and make up some ground. By the time I looked up, it was past me. It’s on me. It’s my ball.”
Padres catcher A.J. Ellis, though, didn’t think Hosmer deserved all the blame.
“No excuse, you go out there, you catch the ball,” Ellis said. “Looking back, I should’ve been out there in the mix, waiting for him to call me off.”
Meanwhile, Bregman was pleasantly surprised that the ball hadn’t been caught. “I thought that I just missed it and that I should have crushed it,” he said. Because Hosmer never actually touched the ball, it was ruled a single for Bregman, not an error for Hosmer.
“If you watch enough games I guess you see everything,” said Astros manager A.J. Hinch. “They tell you that. I’ve never really seen that before. That wasn’t very predictable, except you could tell at the end they were having a hard time getting to the ball. Hosmer was racing pretty fast. Very unexpected, but we’ll take it.”
The play brought to mind a similar one that occurred about 9 years ago to end a game between the New York Yankees and the Mets.
The Mets were winning 8-7 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, but the Yankees had runners on first and second and Alex Rodriguez at the plate.
Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez threw a 3-1 fastball to the Yankee slugger, and A-Rod popped it up behind second base. Mets second baseman Luis Castillo should have made the play, but he dropped the ball, allowing both the tying and winning runs to score.
There’s no excuse for plays like that. Sometimes, the ball just needs to be caught, no matter what.
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