May 10
Dallas Braden’s perfect game would have been markedly less perfect had Evan Longoria gotten his bunt down in the fifth inning. Should he have tried it in the first place?
May 11
Josh Beckett went nuts against the Yankees, throwing fastball after fastball at or near multiple players. Was it unintentional? Does it matter?
May 12
The Phillies own both a pair of binoculars and an allegedly powerful hunger to see what the other team is up to behind the plate.
May 12
Nap-gate hit the Mariners clubhouse hard. The real issue, however, isn’t Ken Griffey Jr.’s sleep habits, it’s who’s leaking sensitive information to the media.
May 13
It’s not like the Phillies haven’t been accused of sign stealing before. Like, last October, by Yankees fans.
May 14
Chris Carpenter is proving to have a weak spot when it comes to perceived disrespect. Turns out there is such thing as too much devotion to the unwritten rules.
– Jason
The Baseball Codes 
Hi all, I wanted an opinion that on something that happened in last nights Giants/Houston game… Tores hit a ball in the gap when I believe the giants were winning by 5 runs and turned a double into a tripple… When the giants got up Sandavol was up and got hit in the foot… Sandavol got hit because tores stretched a double into a triple with a 5 run lead? and Sandavol being a big boy went down and cried like a baby… How is that going to be seen by the league? Thanks
Bodhi,
It’s difficult to comment on specific motivations here, be they from Torres, in hustling into an eighth-inning triple; or Astros pitcher Jeff Fulchino, in hitting Sandoval as retribution — if it wasn’t accidental, which, based on the location of the pitch, it probably was. (More on that in a moment.)
In general terms a five-run lead has a firm foothold in the gray area of when it is and isn’t proper to shut down the running game. In the bottom of the eighth inning, however, with a runner in scoring position (who ended up making it a six-run lead when he scored), against a moribund team like the Astros, in a pitcher’s park and with Brian Wilson — one of the best closers in the game — at the ready, it’s difficult to argue that Torres shouldn’t have stayed at second had he wanted to adhere to the unwritten rules. (To be fair to Torres, he was waved around second by third-base coach Tim Flannery. Watch it here.)
If a pitcher is looking to hit a batter, however, the foot is an unlikely target. All it takes is a quick hop to get out of the way, and the threat of a passed ball at that point, with a runner at third, is likely too much to stomach. Had Fulchino wanted to drill Sandoval, he probably would have aimed higher.
They’re all good questions to ask, however. Nice catch.
– Jason