Thursday, June 13, 2024

Post-Game 69 Thread: Blowing Through Stop Sign, Pages Loses Game

RANGERS 3, DODGERS 2

Watching the play in isolation, it was maddening to see Dodgers rookie Andy Pages blow right through Coach Dino Ebel's stop sign and try to score from first on the bottom-nine Jason Heyward double to right-center.

Heyward laced a shot to the gap that was misplayed by the center fielder, scoring Will Smith from second base to make it 3-2 Texas. But it didn't look deep enough to justify the baserunning boldness of Pages, and when Pages was thrown out at the plate by a good distance, it seemed like a pretty stupid decision to try and stretch his run by 90 feet. It wasn't very close at home, and Pages cost us the game.

That said, it could be argued that Pages had already overachieved by even earning the two-out walk to get on base in the first place, so maybe we were playing with house money.

And with the nine-hole coming up next, it wasn't like Cavan Biggio, let alone any others in our expansive cast of shitty utility player benchwarmers, was going to get a game-tying RBI single after that point. But at least we would have still been alive.

At the end of the day, Pages should have known better than to take it upon himself to chance it, especially after making another baserunning blunder against the Yankees last weekend. He can't turn into the next Yasiel Puig on the basepaths.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shielded Pages from criticism, but here's hoping he took Pages aside and told him this can't happen again.

At least I left the game early, so I didn't have to see this mess in person.

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