Poor CC Sabathia. He came "this close" to throwing a no-hitter yesterday against the Pirates. The media outcry this morning is that Pittsburgh's official scorer should have given CC an error in the bottom of the 5th inning. The Brewers' pitcher failed to cleanly field an Andy LaRoche dribbler off of the third base side of the mound. LaRoche was safe and Pirates' official scorer Bob Webb gave him an infield hit.
Here's Webb's explanation of the moment:
"It was a spinning ball," official scorer Bob Webb said immediately after
the conclusion of the game. "It's to the right of a left-handed pitcher. In my
view from the beginning of the play, it's not an ordinary play to make.
"It is difficult both because of the spin and because he has to make the
play and turn completely around, and the runner was well down the line. It would
have been a very difficult play to make. In my view, it was a hit as a result of
those factors."
When the game was over, there was some crying from Brewers payers and their manager that CC got robbed of a no-hitter. There is even talk this morning that Major League Baseball might try to convince Webb to change his ruling.
Change the scoring? This should not happen. If you want to throw a no hitter, it really has a lot to do with every batter, so apparently this was not on CC's mind in the FIFTH INNING! Had it been, perhaps he should have booted the ball into the duggout, though you would never, ever convince me that a Major League player would commit an error on purpose.
But what if Bob Webb is convinced to change what he put down on his score card? What would happen?
First, I imagine Nolan Ryan would have some "lovely" things to say about this. I think I would prefer to see CC have to fight Nolan Ryan to get his no hitter. As proven by Robin Ventura, though, to charge a mound occupied by Nolan Ryan is indeed an error in itself--so Webb would have to change the score and give CC 2 errors.
Maybe the Brewers would have CC throw out the first pitch tonight against the Mets and then have the entire team dogpile him to celebrate the rarity. Well, every player but Ben Sheets, who starts tonight and needs to stay healthy enough to no-hit the Mets--how hard could that be?
I hope the score doesn't change. I have to say something righteous here. The integrity of the game is at stake! Ooohh, yeah, that oughta do it. Of course the present regime, pardon me, commissioner's office is well known for looking after the integrity of the game.
