Four reason why Schoop didn't lose the game!

[LookinUp]

Regardless of what play should have been on, Schoop WAS in position as a cutoff man. In that position, he should align himself with home plate. If the ball's offline, he should cut it off. He knows if the ball isn't coming to him. He doesn't need a catcher who's 80 feet away trying to yell over an excited crowd in the bottom of the 9th. When the ball was off line, Schoop should have known to cut it. That's completely obvious to me.

[mdbdotcom]

Regardless of what play should have been on, Schoop WAS in position as a cutoff man. In that position, he should align himself with home plate. If the ball's offline, he should cut it off. He knows if the ball isn't coming to him. He doesn't need a catcher who's 80 feet away trying to yell over an excited crowd in the bottom of the 9th. When the ball was off line, Schoop should have known to cut it. That's completely obvious to me.

He wasn't in a cutoff position when the ball was thrown, he was standing at 3B. He moved toward the incoming ball and then decided to let it go through.

[srock]

I just watched the play a few times and I'm pretty sure the bad throw is the root cause of the problem.

The throw is terrible because it should be a direct throw to home, not to a cut off man. Lough isn't very deep, there is no reason for a major league OF to hit a cutoff man 100 feet away. Moreover, it WAS a throw to home, look at him crow hop, you don't do that to hit a cutoff man 100 feet away. It was simply a horrible throw. A decent throw and this is a mute point.

Scope is out of position but things happened really fast. He was trying to recover and the throw to home nearly clocked him in the head. He did well just to get out of the way. Maybe if he is in better position or maybe if he is the Legend of Machado, he does something brilliant, cuts the ball and gets an out somehow. Maybe.

We have no idea is Wieters called for a cut, but given the laser beam throw and the crowd noise, I'm not sure he could have. There just isn't time between Lough throwing it and it passing Schoop for him to yell CUT 3 and Schoop probably wouldn't hear him anyway.

[mdbdotcom]

He wasn't in a cutoff position when the ball was thrown, he was standing at 3B. He moved toward the incoming ball and then decided to let it go through.

The fact that Flaherty went to one knee so a throw to the plate would go over his head was a pretty good indication to me that the infielders were not expecting a throw to a cutoff man. Lough says he was throwing the ball to a cutoff man. Seems like an odd decision to me.

[LookinUp]

As an aside, I'd hope that Buck also improves backup drills.

Most stadiums have brick behind home plate. It'd seem to me that a backup might consider where a ball will bounce off that brick when aligning themselves to help the play. I can think of pros and cons, but we were clearly unprepared for that bounce.

[Stotle]

Regardless of what play should have been on, Schoop WAS in position as a cutoff man. In that position, he should align himself with home plate. If the ball's offline, he should cut it off. He knows if the ball isn't coming to him. He doesn't need a catcher who's 80 feet away trying to yell over an excited crowd in the bottom of the 9th. When the ball was off line, Schoop should have known to cut it. That's completely obvious to me.

His job really isn't to line up a throw in that situation. He'd have to be too deep in the infield towards home, at which point he is redundant.

[srock]

I won't argue who IS at fault, but I'll tell you who isn't....Lough. He threw the ball DIRECTLY at Schoop, which is what outfielders are trained to do. In fact, has Schoop not dodged out of the way (instead of, ya know, catching the ball) it would have probably hit him in the head. The reason the ball was so far off course from home is because Schoop was not in the proper position. He is supposed to be lined up between the outfielder and the catcher, so that he is in position to either cut it, or let it go through to home. Schoop was not in the right position, so when he decided not to catch it and let it go through, the ball was off line.

Like I said, I won't get into who was at fault for letting the ball go through, whether that was Schoop or Wieters, but Lough did exactly as instructed on that play.

He didn't throw the ball DIRECTLY at Schoop. Schoop was moving trying to get back in position. And this is not a situation to hit a cutoff man. This isn't little league, its an easy throw to home.

Lough could have just sprinted into the infield with the ball. He wasn't deep enough to throw to a cutoff man. Espeically when there isn't even a cutoff man out there because Schoop wasn't setup. Lough to fired it hard as he could in the general direction of where a cut should have been made. But this is was not necessary.

[Yardball85]

Here is the play again..

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2014_04_20_balmlb_bosmlb_1&mode=video&c_id=bal

1) The throw was off the line. It tailed towards pitchers mound as it hit the infield. So massively bad throw.

2) For Schoop to catch it, no way he get Pedroia at 3rd. None. As Schoop is already close to 10ft off 3rd and the ball is tailing way. Pedroia is already head back to 3rd.

3) Flaherty is out of position. His job as SS is to be at 3rd to cover it. He wasn't there. He just stopped in the base patch and watched the ball. So Schoop is caught in a position of having to decide what to do, cover 3rd or cut the ball. That's a recipe for disaster with a Rookie.

3) Wieters while standing at home plate sees the whole play in front of him. It's his job to call for a cut or not. By looking at Schoop's movement, the cut was called off by Wieters. Schoop was in position to catch it and pulled out of catching it. So it's the only logical answer.

Wieters was also out of position. He should have been lined up with Schoop and he was not. He just stood at home plate. If he lined up with Schoop (as is his job) he would have moved to cut that ball off from hitting the "back stop" as it was mere feet from him at home plate which still gave him enough time to get back to home if Pedroia was dumb enough to go home. Thus forcing a run down.

So it was mistakes all around.

Could have Schoop cut that ball off? Of course, but he's not getting Pedroia at 3rd if he does and it looks like he was called off from doing a cut off. Did Flaherty not do his job? Of course. And was Wieters standing out on an island twiddling his thumbs? Absolutely.

While I agree it was not entirely Schoop's fault, your anti-Flaherty agenda is plain hilarious bro.

[CA-ORIOLE]

I just watched the play a few times and I'm pretty sure the bad throw is the root cause of the problem.

The throw is terrible because it should be a direct throw to home, not to a cut off man. Lough isn't very deep, there is no reason for a major league OF to hit a cutoff man 100 feet away. Moreover, it WAS a throw to home, look at him crow hop, you don't do that to hit a cutoff man 100 feet away. It was simply a horrible throw. A decent throw and this is a mute point.

Scope is out of position but things happened really fast. He was trying to recover and the throw to home nearly clocked him in the head. He did well just to get out of the way. Maybe if he is in better position or maybe if he is the Legend of Machado, he does something brilliant, cuts the ball and gets an out somehow. Maybe.

We have no idea is Wieters called for a cut, but given the laser beam throw and the crowd noise, I'm not sure he could have. There just isn't time between Lough throwing it and it passing Schoop for him to yell CUT 3 and Schoop probably wouldn't hear him anyway.

Excellent post. Agree on everything here.

[BobbyWoontz]

Watch the video again. Pedroia never tagged up. Unfortunately, once the umpire called Pedroia safe at home, the game was over and there was no time to appeal. Buck attempted to challenge, but there should have been an appeal play.

There ya go. A regular appeal play would of sufficed. No replay review needed. Didn't matter, as replays did show him tagging up. Ya never know, the 3rd base ump could've called him out on an appeal, and it would've been final, since according to the rules, it wasn't reviewable. Nothing to lose by appealing.

[CA-ORIOLE]

There ya go. A regular appeal play would of sufficed. No replay review needed. Didn't matter, as replays did show him tagging up. Ya never know, the 3rd base ump could've called him out on an appeal, and it would've been final, since according to the rules, it wasn't reviewable. Nothing to lose by appealing.

Right, it can still be appealed even though it's not reviewable. I think Buck may have done that. He discussed it with the umps for quite awhile after the game. I don't know why people continue to argue he didn't tag up when he clearly did.

[LookinUp]

It never looked to me that Pedey ever tagged up - but Schoop said he thought he had. Machts nichts now but Show asked the umps about it after so they said.

He definitely tagged. They showed the replay after the game when Buck was arguing. It was unmistakable on replay.

Re: Stotle's point that the 3B not be a short cutoff, I just disagree with the strategy. I'm not saying Stotle's wrong, I just hate a catcher with a catcher's mitt being the only option to field a ball from the outfield. It's clear that a pitcher backing up with all of the brick around him is insufficient.

[LookinUp]

Right, it can still be appealed even though it's not reviewable. I think Buck may have done that. He discussed it with the umps for quite awhile after the game. I don't know why people continue to argue he didn't tag up when he clearly did.

Yeah. It's quite possible that Buck wanted a replay and/or an appeal but the umpire made it clear that 1) it wasn't reviewable and 2) Buck would lose the appeal.

[srock]

From Roch, here is what Buck and Schoop said:

"You'd have to ask Jonathan, but there's a lot of things going on. I'm not so sure it wasn't cuttable," Showalter said.

"His first move is probably back to the bag to think there's going to be a throw there. You have to ask him what's going through his head there. We just made a poor throw. Had nothing to do with Jonathan."

"I should have caught the throw," Schoop said. "When the line drive went, I went to the base. As soon as he hit it, everybody was thinking it was a hit, and then I ran to the base because I thought maybe we could catch him (off the bag) and get a double play there. And when he made the catch, I saw Pedroia make the tag. I wasn't able to react to the cutoff."

Schoop wouldn't use his inexperience at third as an excuse.

"I wouldn't blame it on that," he said. "I should have known."

[epic]

Having watched the replay a few times now both in real time and in slow motion here is my take:

Starting from when Lough catches the ball Flaherty is practically on the baseline between second and third and doesn't really have time to get over to cover third unless the play goes so long as to induce a run down. In that case I believe he would have made it over there just fine. To be clear, the ensuing outcome of the play had nothing to do with Flaherty.

Once the ball is caught by Lough, Schoop looks kind of lost. He initially goes to cover third, but when Lough is winding up for the throw he scrambles off the base into a makeshift cut-off position. This is where everything gets tricky because we don't know what the players were thinking as everything was playing out.

Here is what I think happened:

Schoop left the bag late realizing he needed to be the cut-off guy no matter what. That is his job in that situation, regardless of how shallow Lough was on the throw. Doubling the runner up at third is not the priority, it's making sure he does not score. However, I also think Stotle's argument is a fair one -- this is the highest level of baseball there is. That throw gets made on the fly 90% of the time and 99% of the time Lough will make a more accurate throw.

The throw comes in and it literally whizzes right by Schoop's head/glove.

A couple of things here:

- I think Wieters sees Schoop coming off from the bag at the last minute, and along with the trajectory of the throw, thinks Schoop is going to cut it off. Lough is so shallow that everyone knew Pedroia wasn't going to tag. The only person who might even consider running there is Billy Hamilton.

- Wieters stays in position covering home thinking the throw will be cut. When it isn't cut he doesn't have enough time to go the 10-15 feet to his left to stop the ball form going to the backstop.

- O'Day may have been able to position himself a little better but holy cow was that a bad throw by Lough. Seriously, that could not have been worse. You have to assume he's throwing all the way through to the plate there given the situation even though it turned out Schoop was right there to cut it. If that was in face the case then a good chunk of blame has to go to Lough there. You simply have to make a better throw.

- I still have to hand some of the blame to Schoop. He does not need the blessing from Wieters to cut that throw off. It is also his job to line himself up with Wieters, not the other way around. The whole point of him being out there to cut off a throw on that play is to prevent a disastrous play at the plate from a bad throw, not double off the runner at 3rd. If that happens - great - but that is not the intent.

Bottom line is despite Schoop's actions at third, a good throw by Lough prevents all of this. He's a good defender and has a very strong arm but this was not his finest moment.