Way to ruin it for everyone, Scott Cousins. Your Ray Lewis-esque shoulder tackle, errr… I mean totally legal and appropriate slide into Buster Posey has put the fear of God into catchers across the land.
Who would blame them though? After Posey got demolished, Humberto Quintero got taken out. Today, it was Ryan Doumit’s turn to feel the pain (more on that later). And then there is Brayan Pena…
In one of the strangest plays you’ll see all season long, Mike Napoli slid into home to score the game-winning run for the Texas Rangers despite the fact that the throw beat him to the plate be several steps. How could this happen, you ask? I blame Scott Cousins.
As you can see in the video, Pena is standing right on top of the plate, holding the ball, waiting, bracing himself for impact, waiting some more and… oh, right guys are allowed to slide aren’t they? D’oh!
I’m not going to say that I know exactly what was going through Pena’s head at the moment, but I have to think that at least somewhere in his subconscious he was thinking of the Posey play and was so concerned about getting Napoli’s shoulder planted in his chest that he became preoccupied with the impending collision and completely lost his bearings, forgetting that he was on the plate and not in front of it. Tagging the runner out somehow wasn’t in the forefront of his mind.
Was he acting out of self-preservation? Maybe, but I sure hope not. Posey’s injury, while unfortunate, is just part of the game and something that will happen again, but isn’t going to happen very often. It’s baseball, stuff happens even when nobody does anything wrong.
That brings us back to Doumit. As the latest catcher to be felled by a play at the plate, Doumit reminds us that not all collisions are created equal. His play, like the Napoli-Pena play, featured no lowered shoulders or balls getting dislodged, merely a guy going in feet first, as he should, and a catcher being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is all just part of being catcher. If you don the tools of ignorance, you have to accept that getting hurt is not just a potentiality, but an eventuality.
It sucks that Doumit got hurt. It sucks even more for the Royals that Pena was more concerned with a potential collision than making an out.
Also last night: Yovani Gallardo’s resurgence continues in a shutout of the Giants… Justin Verlander was spectacular again… But Clayton Kershaw totally outdoes them both with a two-hitter… John Danks got pounded by the Jays and took his frustrations out on Jose Bautista, yelling at him for running too slow after he popped up (seriously)… No other catchers were harmed in the making of this recap.
What to watch tonight: It is probably going to take a lot to pry you away from your Memorial Day BBQs, but I’ll do my best to sell you on a some games. Do you like socks? Well them, how about White Sox vs. Red Sox featuring ace Jon Lester and former ace Jake Peavy. Or if you are in the true spirit of Memorial Day, you could check out the Padres-Braves to see if the Pads dust off their camoflauge uniforms… that is, if you can actually see them! If all else fails, just watch Phillies-Nationals because Roy Halladay is pitching. Full schedule with probable pitchers here.
