Rivas' Boner and Other Small Matters

The Twins beat the Mariners 5-2 tonight dropping Seattle to 3.5 games behind surging (though boner-less) Oakland. Joe Mays was the winner, improving to 3-5. That's not all: Mays caught a ball deflected off the speaker in the Contraction Dome for an out. He must have read the ground rules before the game.

Also, in the third Luis Rivas got caught trying to stretch a double to center into a triple. You see, he forgot, or at least failed to recognize, that third was already occupied by A.J. Pierzynski, who had been held there. Rivas then held a multi-dimensional sprint back to the second-base bag with Bret Boone who had retrieved the ball from center. Rivas lost.

Along the boner line, Derek Jeter was doubled at second in a bizarre play in the Yankees 6-0 win over suddenly listless-again Boston. With Jeter at second and Giambi at first, Bernie Williams hit a shallow fly to right that Manny Ramirez couldn't hold on to. Jeter evidently never saw the ball lying on the ground nor did he see the charging Giambi. He stayed at second and was tagged out without an attempt to display any sentience whatsoever on his part. Of course, this in no way detracts from his remarkable heads-up relay throw home in the playoffs last year nor from the spectacular plays that he made at short tonight at least in the minds of the Yankees commentators, men who would be debating one inning later the merits, or rather the lack thereof, of pitch counts. They forgot the year was 2002. On one of Jeter's "spectacular" plays, it appeared that his ankle had been shackled to the ground prior to the play, and the spectacular-ness consisted in diving after doing nothing whatsoever to get in position to make the play. Again the impartial Yankee commentators loved it. They also tell David Wells that he's not fat when they stay up nights discussing who likes who and do each others' hair.

There was one spectacular play by, of all people, David Wells (you see, no real physical movement was involved). With Manny Ramirez at third and Shea Hillenbrand at first in the bottom of the second in a 0-0 game, Carlos Baerga hit a high chopper to the pitcher. The ball was chopped so hard that Wells just about set for a fly ball. He caught it and throw home in one motion, like a tip drill, getting Ramirez by a step.

I am required by law to end this bit with the words, "Well, how about that?"