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Posted 10/09/2008 at 04:13 PM
It’s very exciting to see baseball resume after an odd Wednesday with no major sporting event action. You could have wagered on exhibition NBA games but it was a rare fall day with no football, baseball, or regular season basketball or hockey taking place. The WNBA is even wrapped up as well. Normally just the two days surrounding the MLB All Star game offer such a break in the action but with none of the MLB division series going five games the day off came up.
Although there were some great games and excellent moments in the division series this season they will be remembered for sloppy fielding. Errors and defensive misplays have been prominent so far this postseason and hopefully that will change in the division series games as too much is at stake to have teams losing on plays that should be made.
The most egregious mistake was in the Boston/Los Angeles series with Torii Hunter and Howie Kendrick both backing off a pop fly with two outs and the bases loaded, leading directly to three runs in game 3. The Angels wound up winning that game but Los Angeles had several mistakes on the base paths and in the field that proved costly. Hunter, a gold glove center fielder also had a drop on a routine play.
Milwaukee gold glove center fielder Mike Cameron also had two critical drops on catches that were tough plays but plays he is expected to make. The Cubs had a game with an error by each infielder and Milwaukee second basemen Rickie Weeks played out of the lineup with a critical drop on a play covering first base. All in all there was a lot of suspect fundamental baseball in the opening round of the playoffs.
Overall 16 errors were made in the 15 games with the Tampa Bay/Chicago series being the only series that did not feature multiple errors. The Cubs made six errors in just three games but also keep in mind that the error count does not account for several plays that could have been made. Let’s hope for some better play overall in the next round.
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