Red Sox’s antics, moaning about Minor’s 200th strikeout not sitting well with Rangers
The New York Yankees are in town, which always creates some extra noise and excitement at Globe Life Park.
Yet, the Boston Red Sox were still on a lot of minds Friday, a day after eyebrows throughout baseball were raised by the manner in which Mike Minor recorded is 200th strikeout of the season.
The popup the Rangers allowed to drop in the ninth inning Thursday continues to appear in the headlines and on TV chyrons.
Baseball purists can’t stomach what the Rangers did.
Others are struggling to grasp that what the Red Sox did at the plate to prevent the strikeout was extraordinary and as unprofessional as manager Alex Cora claimed the dropped popup was.
The Rangers’ stance didn’t change. They remain thrilled for Minor and support the decision to let the popup fall and give Minor an extra chance at 200.
“The old school people are going to say certain things about it and the new school people are going to say, ‘Who cares?’” manager Chris Woodward said. “They can do whatever they want and they can be mad. Maybe it was right, maybe it was wrong. I didn’t like it as a baseball person dropping a popup. I have no problems with it now.”
Minor, an All-Star this season, was stuck on eight strikeouts after six innings, and the Red Sox started swinging at first pitches in the seventh inning. They had some success, too, hitting two home runs to forge a 5-5 tie.
The Rangers responded with two of their own and led 7-5 entering the eighth. That’s when the Red Sox when three up, three down on three pitches and their scheme to prevent the strikeout was truly exposed.
According to Elias Sports, their have been only eight three-pitch, three-out innings by one pitcher since 2015.
The Red Sox apparently didn’t mind if the Rangers knew, as their hitters were laughing about the first-pitch outs as if to say, “He’s not going to get that strikeout.”
So, Woodward sent Minor back to the mound for the ninth at 120 pitches. After another quick out, this one on the second pitch after the first was intentionally thrown well short of the plate, Chris Owings took a strike, then a ball, and then popped up the third pitch.
First baseman Ronald Guzman converged on it. Catcher Jose Trevino didn’t make much attempt to get it. Minor charged in and told Guzman to let it drop.
Foul ball. Strike two.
Owings went down looking, albeit at a pitch out of the strike zone, on the next pitch.
After the game, Cora said that his team played the game the right way. Rangers players found that laughable, especially after Cora let left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez languish Tuesday for five innings to help him move a step closer to 20 wins.
“For him to say what he said and the way they were actually playing made no sense,” shortstop Elvis Andrus said. “It was like dumb and dumber. They were actually just going to make contact. They were actually trying to not compete for him to not achieve the 200th strikeout. Doing that, especially when they’re coming back and laughing because he couldn’t strike him out, to me that’s disrespectful.”
Andrus said he couldn’t care less what other teams or managers think about the popup falling. Of those who are calling for an asterisk to be next to the 200 strikeouts, Woodward said, “It’s ridiculous.”
Minor hasn’t changed his mind. He’s happy to have the first 200-strikeout season of his career.
“I don’t care,” Minor said. “You could look at it both ways, but I don’t think they should be crying about it.”
Woodward doesn’t want the popup to define his team.
“Our team wasn’t happy about some of the other stuff that went on. I’ll leave it at that,” he said. “I know that team plays hard. I know our team plays hard, all year. I’m not going to let maybe one split-second decision for our players to be defined a certain way.”
This story was originally published September 27, 2019 at 6:20 PM.
