Atlanta Braves post-season history: why Sam Holbrook is a villain

Piling On

Medlen righted the ship in the 5th with another 1-2-3 innings, but Matt Holliday got to him for a solo shot in the 6th… 4-2 Cardinals.

But it was once again the Braves’ defense that betrayed matters in the 7th:

• Throwing Error on Uggla – batter-runner David Freese to second base.
• Sac bunt to move Freese to third.

A pitching change happened here – Chad Durbin came into the game.

• Immediately thereafter, Andrelton Simmons also made an error – in his anxiety to make a play, he airmailed a throw home on a grounder.
• That scored Freese and put Pete Kozma on second.  5-2.

Another pitching change:  enter Johnny Venters.

An infield single off Venters got away enough for Kozma to come all the way around and score.  6-2.

A double play ended this nightmare… or so we thought.

Bottom of the 7th

Cardinals starter Kyle Lohse was out of the game, have been replaced by Lance Lynn during the bottom of the prior inning.  After the festivities in the top of the 7th, Lynn was also out and Edward Mujica now replaced him on the mound.

Simmons popped out the shortstop… really.  In truth, he did this a lot… 17.5% of the time that season and slightly higher in 2013 before he got that figured out a bit.

After that, Jose Constanza of all people (hitting for Venters), tripled.  A Bourn grounder scored him to make it 6-3.

Prado then singled to start the merry-go-round over again.  Exit Mujica and enter ‘Scrabble’ – Marc Rzepczynski.

Heyward doubled, but Chipper Jones was unable to capitalize on the 2-out chaos and grounded out to end the best sustained threat the Braves had mustered.

Happily, the Braves’ defense rallied in the 8th:  2 singles against Eric O’Flaherty were mitigated by a double play.

That brings us to the fateful end of the 8th inning… with a 6-3 deficit.

By the Book

For playoff games, MLB assigns 6 umpires.  2 extras are installed along the left-/right-field lines for sake of boundary calls and interference checks.  As replay review has become the norm, one could argue that these extra umps are superfluous, but that’s not the stance taken by MLB.

As a result of this, umpires stationed ‘out there’ have a different perspective of the field from what they’re used to seeing.  Most of the action is now in front of them as opposed to working the infield where things are often happening behind them.

Whether this factor was at work on that night in the mind of Left Field guard Sam Holbrook is unknown.  What is known is that a rule intended to remove a game exploit was stretched in meaning well beyond the breaking point.

At this point, let’s remind ourselves what that rule states and why it came into being.

In the Official MLB Rule Book, this topic comes under the Definitions of Terms section, beginning on page 145.

It’s lengthy, but here’s the relevant parts (emphasis noted):

An INFIELD FLY is a fair fly ball (not including a line drive nor an attempted bunt) which can be caught by an infielder with ordinary effort, when first and second, or first, second and third bases are occupied, before two are out. The pitcher, catcher and any outfielder who stations himself in the infield on the play shall be considered infielders for the purpose of this rule.

The next paragraph includes a disclaimer for the ambiguity of a fly ball near the foul line.  The one after that talks about the ball being ‘live’ with runners being allowed to advance at their own risk.

It is instructive, though, to consider the reason that this rule is in the book in the first place.

The intent and purpose was to foil infielders’ savvy attempts to exploit the plight of runners in this situation.

With an infield pop-up and multiple runners aboard, an infielder could allow the ball to drop in front of them, then – since the runners are forced to freeze in position – grab the ball and get a cheap double play by nailing the lead runners.

The situation still exists since balls judged to be line drives (even ‘soft’ liners) can still achieve the same effect without invoking the Infield Fly Rule.  But this – combined with an ‘intentional drop’ rule (5.09a(12), page 42) has mitigated the practice quite a bit.

Unfortunately, the manner in which this rule was penned introduced some (probably) unintended consequences… and it’s those consequences that bit the Braves that night.

Zero Hour

So what happened in that inning?

• Mitchell Boggs replaced Scrabble on the mound.
• Freddie Freeman… who was 3 for 4 on the game… walked on 8 pitches.  No wonder we love this guy.
• Dan Uggla grounded out, forcing Freeman at second.
• David Ross (also 3 for 4), singled to center.  One out, runners at first and second.

That brought Simmons back to the plate.  He saw 5 pitches, and then lifted a ball that’s identified benignly in the scoring account as “Popfly, SS”.  But while it was another of Simmons’ pop-ups, this wasn’t of the infield variety.

In was nearly 20 minutes before another pitch was thrown in the game as pandemonium ensued and virtually every loose bottle in the lower stands ended up on the field.

The ball, by many accounts, landed some 235-240 feet from home plate, landing between Holliday and Pete Kozma.  A shortstop normally plays near the outer edge of the infield dirt and Kozma was on the dirt when the play started.  That required something on the order of 60-70 feet to travel to get to the ball.

Could Kozma have caught the fly?  Yes.  In fact, he called for it during the play, but then seems to have decided that it was Holliday’s ball – perhaps because he heard Holliday hollering or perhaps he decided that Holliday would have a better chance to make a throw.

It’s also quite possible that Kozma thought that he was in trouble – a careful review of the video shows he had overrun the ball and it actually landed behind where he had been.

Either way, Kozma bailed, Holliday was clueless (he wasn’t that close to being able to help), and the ball found grass.

Sam Holbrook, roaming the left field line, was the only umpire who – eventually – issued the infield fly rule call.

It wasn’t immediately declared as the rule requires, which certainly indicates that there was doubt in Holbrook’s mind about the call.

In fact, the notion that he made call only after seeing Kozma come into the area (you can’t see it happen from the video, but he was parallel to the action at that distance) suggests that perhaps the ‘ordinary effort’ clause should have been closer to the front of his mind on the play.

Uggla and Ross both advanced on the play, but after Holbrook’s declaration – and the 19 minute delay to clean up the field – the Braves didn’t have a bases-loaded-one-out scenario.

It was 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs instead.

Brian McCann walked and Tyler Pastornicky ran for him as Jason Motte had come into the game.  Michael Bourn struck out to end the threat with no runs scoring.

Had the inning continued, Martin Prado was next (1 for 5 that night), though the key AB would have been McCann’s. 

McCann was pinch-hitting, but Motte would have been forced to pitch to him without a base being open.  Instead, he walked on 5 pitches.

St. Louis held on in the 9th despite minor skirmish of base-runners with Dan Uggla ending the game on a groundout while representing the tying run.

In the end, the Braves can certainly blame themselves:  3 costly errors and 12 hits that mostly weren’t cashed in.  But it was a rally that was alive and well in the 8th that will be remembered forever.

Rule Details

There’s a comment that is intended to explain better just how the Infield Fly Rule is to be applied.

Unfortunately, it merely complicates the matter (page 146, emphasis added):

On the infield fly rule the umpire is to rule whether the ball could ordinarily have been handled by an infielder – not by some arbitrary limitation such as the grass, or the base lines. The umpire must rule also that a ball is an infield fly, even if handled by an outfielder, if, in the umpire’s judgment, the ball could have been as easily handled by an infielder. The infield fly is in no sense to be considered an appeal play. The umpire’s judgment must govern, and the decision should be made immediately

There’s also the further definition of the term ‘Ordinary Effort’ (page 148):

ORDINARY EFFORT is the effort that a fielder of average skill at a position in that league or classification of leagues should exhibit on a play, with due consideration given to the condition of the field and weather conditions.

When a flustered and frustrated Fredi Gonzalez came out to argue this call, he messed up a bit.  He ultimately filed a protest based on this ‘ordinary effort’ clause… that the infielder (Pete Kozma) needed something beyond ordinary effort to make a play on the ball.

That, unfortunately, falls under the global heading of “judgment call”, which gives umpires the widest possible latitude to decide virtually anything about anything.

Protest denied… you can’t protest a judgment call.

The way that this rule is written simply allows far too much leeway.  No infielder is going to venture into the outfield, be camped under a ball, and then allow it to drop for the purpose of dekeing runners into a double play.  That simply doesn’t happen.

This codicil comment suggesting that there’s no ‘arbitrary limitation such as the grass’ thus provides umpires with far too much leeway.

By this logic, there’s hardly a space in front of the outfielders that could not be construed – in some convoluted manner – to be within the possible range of an Infield Fly Rule.

On top of that, the ‘ordinary effort’ clause is open to a quite far-reaching interpretation.

Bottom Lines

So did Sam Holbrook make a legitimate ruling? By the letter of the law… yes.  By the spirit and original intent of the rule based on the purpose for its presence?  No – not a chance.

Thus the Atlanta Braves were victimized partly by Holbrook (2 other umpires in the area choosing not to agree), partly by their own misdeeds while throwing the baseball around the yard, and partly by a rule book that ultimately didn’t codify the game’s loophole that they wanted to close.

More accurately, the rule book closed that loophole – and introduced another fiasco in the process.

That’s what happened on that night.  The next day, the Atlanta Braves packed up their lockers and went home.  We’ll never know how deep they could have gone in the playoffs that season.

It was also Chipper Jones’ last game.

The Cardinals lost to the eventual World Champs – the Giants – in 7 games.

What was Worse?

The worst playoff wrongs against the Atlanta Braves?  The stakes were higher here:

• October 7, 2010/NLDS:  Buster Posey called safe on a steal attempt.  He wasn’t.
  • Posey later scored the only run in a 1-0 win in Game 1.  The GIants went on to win the series 3 games to 1.
• October 20, 1991/World Series.  Game 2, 3rd inning:  Ron Gant’s momentum coming back to the 1st base bag on a single was exploited by Kent Hrbek, who lifted him off the base and tagged him for the final out of that inning.  Gant would almost certainly have held the bag without… “help”.
  • Lonnie Smith had reached third base on the play, which should have brought David Justice to the plate with 2 outs and runners on the corners while pitcher Kevin Tapani was getting hit hard that inning.

So now the Braves and Cardinals and Holbrook are reunited again, 7 years removed from their rendezvous with history.  As a crew chief now, maybe Holbrook won’t get to the left field line this year.