Video: Bruntlett Lights Up Molina

We were reminded of two things yesterday: (1) Chase Utley is probably human, despite dining with the gods a few times a month, and (2) it's tough to be a catcher. Watch as Yadier Molina gets the brunt of Eric Bruntlett:

Yadi would leave the field on a stretcher, a pretty uncommon occurrence in baseball, but he's apparently OK with only a minor concussion. Gotta give him credit too—he held onto the ball and Bruntlett was called out despite there seemingly not being a tag, leaving the score knotted at 6 in the ninth inning. Then, just like that time you came home in cuffs, fathers everywhere were disappointed at what happened in extra innings. At least we had Tiger.

Comments

[MikeY]

...just think, if he hadn't mis-read the ball that got him over to 3rd, he probably would have scored the winning run

[Joe in Haddonfield]

Molina must have said something to the medical staff that put them in emergency mode.

Molina makes a tag on the knee just as Bruntlett makes contact. It's the definition of a bang-bang play and the ump was in perfect position for the call (for a change). I question sending Bruntlett on contact. A runner on third with 2 outs is better. It's not like you have the bottom of the order coming up. Werth with an 800+ OPS and Utley. Tough call.

[Kunk]

Tough call and a disappointing finish to a decent road trip. It's easy to second guess the call to send Bruntlett, but I think it was the right decision. I think a conservative estimate would say EB would be safe at home on that play 4 or 5 times out of 10. As much as I like Werth, I don't think he's batting .400 with RISP.

Again, this is easy to second-guess, but if EB slides feet first there, he's easily safe. Obviously tough to judge as I'm sure he was expecting to have to barrel into Molina no matter what.

[TJ]

Bruntlett was probably sent because they figured Werth would try and bunt him home...