One Strike Away from History

Today's blog post was written by J.C. Obringer, an intern with Play Like a Champion and a rising junior at Ball State University majoring in digital sports production and sports administration, and a lead producer on Ball State's SportsLink program.  

In baseball, an elite group of pitchers have thrown perfect games; indeed, the achievement has eluded some of the game's greats. In over 135 years of major league baseball, there have only been 23 official perfect games. A perfect game is when a pitcher pitches a victory with a minimum of nine innings, with no opposing player reaching base, and the pitcher has not allowed any hits or walks, and has not hit any batsmen. The pitcher faces 27 batters and only 27 batters.  But it only takes one pitch to ruin a perfect game.

  

In baseball, no one talks about a perfect game during a perfect game. And as the game goes on, tension mounts for all involved.  Recently, the Washington Nationals' Max Scherzer found himself one out (and one strike) away from a perfect game. Scherzer has been a dominant pitcher for years, and made headlines last year when he was traded from the Detroit Tigers to the Nationals for a record breaking salary. The Nationals were up 6-0, and Scherzer was just a throw away from the perfect game club.  The Pittsburgh Pirates' Jose Tabata was at the plate, with two strikes on him. Scherzer's next pitch was a slider inside painting the outside of the strike zone, but the ball dropped hitting Tabata’s left elbow.  

One pitch and there goes the perfect game.  As Tabata took his base, the record books recorded the Hit-by-Pitch and Scherzer's perfect game disappeared. This is a tough way to lose a perfect game. What makes it even tougher is to watch the replay of the pitch, and watch Tabata lean into the pitch. In my opinion, he didn’t make any attempt to get out of the way just leaned a little in and took the hit.

Tabata has said he didn’t lean into the pitch, but it’s pretty obvious that he didn’t even try and get out of the way.  He also stated that as the batter, his job is to get on base any way he can (implying even if he has to get hit to do it.)

Whether Tabata leaned into the pitch or not, the umpire did not make the call and call him out. Even though I can say Tabata made no attempt to get out of the way, I'm just a fan, but the umpire is entitled to make that call and call him out.

Rule5.05
He is touched by a pitched ball, which he is not attempting to hit unless (a) The ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter or (b) The batter makes no attempt to avoid being touched by the ball (MLB.com) 

Even though this is a rule, it very rarely gets called. I'd like to see the MLB re-evaluate the rule, because it is a crazy end to what could have been a perfect game. However, that’s what makes achieving a perfect game so hard, everything has to match up and fall into place.  Sometimes, even though it stinks, that's just what happens in baseball. 

Max Scherzer ended up having the next batter pop out, and he finished with a no-hitter, which is still an impressive achievement. He finished the game with class, and exemplified what it means to Play Like a Champion.