Yes, it was the Phillies and the Marlins. No, the game was not completely meaningless. The Marlins are locked into their draft slot next year, but the Phillies are not. Not at all, as they’re one of six teams that entered Wednesday with roughly the same record, and pennants are ultimately won and lost on such things.
The Last Blown Call of All Time
Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
So Wednesday night’s game mattered. Maybe not to all of the fans or all of the players. But it mattered, in some way that won’t be known or noticed for some years. Which I mention only because of this play in the seventh inning:
Did you notice how the baseball never got within a foot of the baserunner?
Well, first-base umpire C.B. Bucknor didn’t. He called the runner out, and the home-plate umpire didn’t overrule him so the travesty stood. The good news is that a) the Marlins won anyway, and b) apparently they benefited from another blown call in the same inning:
The bottom of the seventh featured two missed calls by the umpires as Rollins’ tag on a pickoff attempt at second base by Cesar Jimenez was in time to get Juan Pierre, but he was called safe. Then Jimenez applied a tag with his bare hand to get Christian Yelich out on a slow grounder.
“I think it all evened out,” Sandberg said. “One for them, one for us.”
So all’s well that ends well. This .gif does stand as a monument to Bucknor’s poor judgment, but then we hardly need another of those. Maybe instead we should see this as a milestone. With the huge expansion of video review that’s coming next season, maybe this will live on forever as the last truly terrible late-innings decision that we ever see.
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