@Nate - your thought about Howard was mine, too. The only thing clue that Howard short-hopped it was his reaction.  There’s NO way he throws that ball if he caught it on the fly.  Imagine it was Little League, and little Georgie ran on a popup to first because he didn’t know the rules.  Little Ryan’s coach would be SCREAMING “touch the base!” not “Throw it to second!”  That’s a muscle memory that never gets lost.

Apparently the bridge to Mariano is the Tacoma Narrows.  Hope Andy can go 7.

if you go back and look at the pitch f/x you’ll see the ump ‘missed’ about 13 strikes for burnett alone(should of been called balls).  burnett just kept going back to the well.  he’s was on his A game.  the help from the ump just made him that much better.

AJ benefited more from the lower strikes than Pedro, but they both were getting the calls on the outside part of the plate.  AJ just went there far more than Pedro did but it looks relatively consistent on both sides.

RE: Jeter bunting

Yeesh, so he did…urghh…struggling…to blame Jeter…can’t seem to…badmouth…Captain Handsome…

Aha! Maybe he’s just *saying* it was his decision now to protect his manager. So selfless, that Jetes.

OR…maybe it was A-Rod that called for the bunt. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Screw that guy!

Along what Mode said, Howard definitely appeared to start going toward the bag before he changed his mind on it.

Mark,

None of your questions are relevant to what I said.

In a play happening that fast, you don’t want to waste anytime wondering what the ump is going to call.  The safest bet, if odds are still good in getting the double play, which they were, is to play it the most conservative way possible.  That’s what he did.

Now, once Rollins has the ball, he’s looking that way and sees that the ump called the batter out on the catch, he has time to make a decision to just tag the runner.

That Howard play was bogus, but I really don’t blame the 1B umpire because his positioning is terrible there (no fault of his own, just regular positioning for that play).  The call or atleast an overturn of that call should’ve been made by the home plate umpire.  But then you have the same problem that sometimes messes things up in the NFL, did the rest of the play happen on the assumption that the first call was right?  If the 1B ump said that ball did bounce, does Howard take the out at 1B?  I think thats part of the reason why it WASN’T overturned. 

There were many signs that it was picked on a bounce.  One, was the sheer fact that he threw to second base, which is pointless since he could’ve just tagged first for the double play.  Second, when you catch a low line drive (even in the OF) your first instinct is to raise the glove and show the umpire that you caught it.  You see it all the time from OFs.  Howard didn’t do that either, he ran to 1B, and I’m assuming he had enough time to get the man out at 1st, even with Damon running. 

Saying all this, the Damon ball and the Utley ones aren’t as bad as the ones before in the postseason.  They just get extra attention as a result of all the other bad ones.  In these cases, I can atleast understand how they made these mistakes. 

The Utley one, was a simple bang bang play.  And if you watch the replay, you can see that Utley hit the bag with the tip of his foot.  A good amount of umpires listen for the bang on the base, while looking at the glove (some do it the other way too I guess) and maybe the “pop” wasn’t as loud as it normally is because of how Utley made weak contact with the bag at first.  Again, wrong call, but atleast I understand that it was close enough where I can say thats its a mistake that isn’t uncommon. 

On Burnett, he looked sick, nasty, and filthy yesterday.  To shut a Phillies lineup like that down for 7 innings was just magnificent.  The Cliff Lee one was better because he went the complete game, but given the same amount of pitch counts, I think Burnett goes 8 yesterday, but they probably didn’t want to push him too much if they wanted to stick with the 3 man rotation. 

Rollins looks like he could break out soon.  I’ve seen him a good amount because he was my SS in a bunch of fantasy leagues (Thanks for pretty much nothing JIMMY) so I’ve watched his ABs, and he looks close to breaking out.  He seems to be getting good swings on some pitches, which wasn’t the case for most of the year, where he’d get like a double in the first inning and then look lost for the rest of the game.  A-Rod seems close to breaking out as well from his little mini slump in the postseason, there were some foul balls off Pedro that I thought he just missed it. 

Fun series, I got to admit.  It has that special type of excitement about it, two best teams from each league, two high powered offenses, and pitching very well at the moment.  Hopefully it goes 7, and has some crazy ending to it. 

One of which, I thought of today.  Game 7, Phillies up one in the bottom of the 9th.  Swisher on 1B (Yes, have to make it as improbable as I can, so bear with me) and Jeter at the plate with 2 outs.  He hits it deep to RF, and its a HR, as a 35 year old Jeffery Maier makes a legitimate catch after the ball crossed the wall, and then in celebration puts up his hands, which hangover the wall and is called for interference, and the Phillies win.  Hows that for karma? 

Or with how the umpiring it, in the same situation, Jeter hits it off the upper deck, and it bounces back onto the field and is ruled in play.