Chaos

You would think that a team that's been around 15 games under .500 would have had the wheels fall off before now. Impressively, the team and their resident jackass manager have stuck together fairly well. That all ended after Sunday's game. If you missed the game, the play in question was a ball hit by Luis Castillo with two outs in the top of the 8th. Ollie jammed Castillo and the ball kind of blooped out in front of Jack, who couldn't get to the ball in time to catch it on the fly. He hurried a slightly off mark throw to first, which Casey came off the bag for (it was a pretty weak effort on the stretch). It might not have mattered, as Castillo can move pretty good. In all honesty, at first I thought Jack let the ball play him a bit, which resulted in it falling in. After seeing it a couple more times, I don't know if there's anything else he could've done. He was coming in pretty hard and Castillo hit the ball with some major top spin or something because the thing dropped out of the air like a rock about 10 feet quicker than it looked like it should've. Maybe Jack COULD'VE made the play, but I think it would've been impressive even for him. There's no way anyone can say he SHOULD'VE made it. Enter Jim Tracy:
I've seen that play be made.
In public, calling out his Gold Glove caliber shortstop. The guy who shows up every day and plays harder than anyone. I don't think a manager should ever call out a anyone's effort in public like that, but he should especially never (ever, ever, ever, ever) call out the effort of a guy like Jack Wilson. Jack's response:
Wow, he said that? That's his opinion. I did my best to make that play. It was a jam job, a soft line drive and I'm going full bore for that ball. About the only chance you have on that play is if the third baseman can get to it.
Tracy (this and the rest of the quotes are from the PG article, the first one linked) continued:
It's extremely unfortunate that Oliver Perez has to take that loss, because he matched one of the best pitchers in the game. When you're involved in a 1-1 game, you cannot afford to have the kind of mistakes that allow extra hitters to come to the plate. That's exactly what happened and, in my opinion, it's the reason we got beat.
The other players who saw the play, the guys who have PLAYED THE GAME, something that Jim Tracy values so highly, saw something different. Jose Castillo:
Very hard play. When you're running and a hop comes in like that, it's not easy to throw.
Oliver Perez:
Tough play (hey, the guy doesn't speak much English... remember the commercial with the cookies last year?).
Luis Castillo:
He's going to his right, and the ball hops on him like that ... that's hard. Jack Wilson's one of the best shortstops in baseball, and it's still tough for him. I have good speed, too, so he's got to hurry.
That first noise you heard, that was Jack Wilson getting tossed under the bus. The second noise? The wheels coming off of the bus and the thing going over the cliff in flames.

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