Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Un-Bleeping-Believeable

Top of the 4th inning in Game 5 of the Rangers-Rays series. The DECIDING Game 5. The season on the line.
Two outs, slugger Nelson Cruz at the plate. He takes a David Price pitch deep to center, very deep. It hits off the top of the wall and takes a bounce away from B.J. Upton in center.
Cruz ends up on...second? What? He's got decent speed. He should have been standing on third and with a bobble or bad relay maybe he even makes it home. But he's on second base. Why?
Because he stood at the plate admiring his blast, that's why. He thought it was a homer. Wrong! The season is hanging in the balance and he feels it is appropriate to style at the plate and Cadillac his way to second. Unreal. I am so pissed off at not only Cruz but all the look-at-me first, team second jackasses we see not run hard time and time again. What the hell are they thinking? You hit the ball, you run hard. When you see the ball leave the field then, and only then, you breakout the home run trot. Now, if you hit the ball 450 feet and there is absolutely no doubt, you still run hard in my opinion, but if you want to style a bit (a little bit), I can't complain about that too much. But when the ball barely clears the fence, or in this case, bangs off the wall, you better be running.
Fortunately for Cruz, he stole third base on the next pitch and scored when Kelly Shoppach's throw went into left field. Still, if I'm Texas manager Ron Washington, I take Cruz down into the tunnel and lay into him. Not running hard in the regular season is bad enough, not to do it in the deciding game of a playoff series borders on criminal.

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