Baseball, Hot Dogs, Attitudes and Blown Saves

I feel good about having the Tuesday slot to talk about some of the happenings from this past week for the Cardinals with all the high octane stuff. Two things in particular really jumped off the page for not only myself but I assume for most everyone. Those two things being the Molina Meltdown and the Boggs Blowout. Boggs Blowout? That’s bad but it’s all I got. Anyway, onward.

Let’s go with the Molina ejection stuff first since it’s the most current and also the punishment was just announced as well. I assume most of you know the play in question but If you don’t or just need a refresher here’s the link. Now the first part is the actual ejection. Should he have been ejected? In my opinion no, but Al did say on last night’s broadcast that in the Minors it’s an automatic ejection if any equipment is thrown. And the umpire who tossed Yadi is a younger umpire so maybe it was just a snap reaction from recent experience? Not sure. Summarizing, Molina is called out on a close play, he slammed his helmet in disgust, nothing aimed towards the umpire verbal or otherwise, immediately tossed. The umpire didn’t look anyway. In the umpire’s defense the helmet was rather close so that could have been used as grounds for the ejection as well.

The biggest unfortunate of the situation was Molina’s reaction to the ejection. Once the switch flipped he made quite the effort to get in the face of any umpire in the area. Not a good look. In my opinion the initial ejection was a very questionable decision to say the least but Yadi’s reaction took it to a whole new level. The punishment announced yesterday is that Yadi will serve a one game suspension and pay an undisclosed fine. As far as I’m concerned he got off pretty easy given the situation.  MLB might want to come together on agreeing on an equipment slam/toss protocol to have throughout all levels and help avoid these situations. I’ve seen worse not punished and then I’ve seen Bryce Harper tossed for similar. Consistency for all! Moving on.

Mitchell Boggs was given a golden ticket to the Wonka Factory on Thursday night by his manager and he proceeded to drop it down a storm drain. Before I get to the happenings let’s remember that Boggs came into 2013 after having the best season of his professional career. Also going into Spring Training before that very season new manager Mike Matheny had a talk with Boggs letting him know that he was his guy for late inning/high leverage situations. Boggs responded.

This season Jason Motte goes down making Boggs the likely replacement which he was. And he’s never been the same. In fact here’s his season in a nutshell: ajsdl;@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!%@!, Memphis. And then there was Thursday night against the struggling KC Royals. From everything we saw and heard during and after the game Mujica and Rosenthal were on the unavailable to pitch list. So of course with that circumstance it would be a one run game in the ninth. This being after Maness pitched an efficient eighth which is important since he very well could have also pitched the ninth. The decision, which from all accounts seemed pre-planned brought Boggs to the mound to attempt to close the door. Unfortunately Jeff Francoeur drop kicked that door open and brought some friends to the party.

Now of course Matheny was handed the main course of the blame for his loyalty to Boggs but I highly doubt this move was made solo. Mujica and Rosenthal needed rest and a gamble was made and I feel confident that there were some prominent front office folks who helped make or were at least well aware of the possibility of having Boggs pitch in that situation. If it works a rush of confidence is injected and Boggs can continue to make his way. Unfortunately it didn’t but honestly if Boggs can’t be counted on to execute in those situations then something needs to happen anyway. Mujica can’t pitch every night and there’s not enough bullpen spots to have numerous mop up guys. There’s not much forgiveness in professional sports and fan patience seems to always be in short supply.

And my fingers hurt. Until next week…

Twitter: @DJ_McClure  

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NL Central Standings

TeamWLPct.GB
Cardinals9369.574 -
Brewers8676.5317.0
Cubs7488.45719.0
Reds62100.38331.0
Pirates62100.38331.0

Last updated: 10/06/2022

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