Of the Way

If Mike Scioscia’s gamble in the top of the ninth last night had paid off, he would have looked like a genius.  As it was, I can’t fault him for making the call with one of his best bunters at the plate in Erick Aybar.  It just didn’t work.  It is not quite the equivalent of scoring a touchdown to pull within one point and then choosing to go for two and win the game.  Delcarmen is a strikeout pitcher and there’s no guarantee that you can bring the runner in from third with one out.  The problem with that play is that if it doesn’t work and you lose the runner at third (which is what happened), it completely deflates your team.

Kudos to Varitek for sniffing it out and playing the run-down perfectly.  I’ll take him hitting 40 points lower than his current .220 for the amount of runs he’ll save you over the course of a season.