They can’t let it consume them.
In the seventh inning of Saturday's Game 1 of the ALDS between the Royals and Yankees, the game stood tied 5-5 with Jazz Chisholm at first base and no outs. Reliever Michael Lorenzen stuck out Anthony Volpe on a sweeper, and with Chisholm running on the pitch, the Royals had a chance for a double play. Salvador Perez has long been one of the best catchers in baseball at throwing out runners, but on this attempt, his throw was a bit high. Second baseman Michael Massey, to his credit, speared the throw and quickly tagged Chisholm, who was ruled safe.
But upon video review, it was clear that Chisholm popped up too quickly, his foot an inch off the base as he stood while being tagged by Massey. Royals fans saw it. The broadcasting crew saw it. “He’s going to be out at second base just because it was a bad slide,” said TBS broadcaster Ron Darling upon viewing a replay.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. was ruled safe at second on this steal attempt pic.twitter.com/kvwLFx6We1
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) October 6, 2024
But MLB’s replay review team thought differently, allowing the safe call to stand. Of course that ended up being the winning run as Alex Verdugo singled home Chisholm to give the Yankees a 6-5 lead they would not relinquish.
After the game, the Royals grumbled at the call. Massey thought the video was convincing enough to overturn the call, and questioned why replay was needed if it didn’t overturn calls like this.
“Like I said, if that’s something that is not going to be overturned, I’m not sure what (will) other than the obvious calls of guys out by two feet. Then, you know, there is no point in challenging.”
Missed calls are nothing new in baseball, particularly in the post-season where the stakes are raised and the scrutiny is at its highest. There was the “home run” that fan Jeffrey Maier caught for the Yankees in 1996, Eric Gregg’s strike zone for Marlins pitcher Livan Hernandez in 1997, and a bizarre “infield fly rule” call in a 2012 series between the Braves and Cardinals.
Of course, one of the most memorable bad calls in post-season history benefitted the Royals. In the ninth inning of Game 6 of the 1985 World Series between the Royals and Cardinals, leadoff hitter Jorge Orta chopped a ball to first baseman Jack Clark, who wheeled and tossed it to pitcher Todd Worrell covering the base. Worrell seemed to beat Orta to the bag, but umpire Don Denkinger called him safe.
The call was clearly wrong, and there was no replay system at the time to overturn it. While the play did give the Royals the tying run on base, all the Cardinals had to do to win the title was to get three more outs.
But the team found it difficult to get over what they perceived to be a gross miscarriage of justice. Clark missed a foul pop up. Steve Balboni singled. A passed ball allowed runners to move up. You could see what Cardinals players were thinking - “we shouldn’t be in this situation.”
Then light-hitting Dane Iorg singled home two runs to win the game. The Cardinals had allowed the moment to completely swallow them up. Manager Whitey Herzog summed up the mood of the Cardinals clubhouse.
“As far as I’m concerned, we had the damned World Series won tonight.”
The series was tied 3-3, and had the Cardinals come out in Game 7 and played their game, they would have stood a good chance of winning and making Don Denkinger a footnote in history. But Herzog and the Cardinals would not let the call go, especially with Denkinger scheduled to be the home plate umpire.
“We’ve got no more chance of winning than the man in the moon - not with that guy working behind home plate.”
The Royals set the tempo early with an early home run by Darryl Motley and a dominant pitching performance by Bret Saberhagen and turned the game into a laugher. The Royals won the title, and the Cardinals went home to stew about “the call.”
This year’s Royals have a chance now to show how they will respond to a critical call going against them. They could rail about how the Yankees get the calls at home, against the replay system based in New York, how the large television networks that financially support MLB have a vested interest in getting the Yankees to the World Series.
Or they could chalk that up as a missed call by an imperfect system that hurt the Royals, but was not anything they couldn’t overcome. The Royals threw their third starter on the road against a rested Yankees team, walked eight hitters, had their MVP hitter go 0-for-5, and yet still fought the Yankees toe-to-toe in a back-and-forth game with a chance to win at the end. You have to like their chances in the next two games.
For their part, the Royals are saying the right things. Massey wasn’t going to put the entire game on the shoulders of the replay system the way Herzog blamed Denkinger.
“That being said, that’s not the reason we lost the game. We had plenty of opportunities to score runs and make plays. We didn’t.”
Manager Matt Quatraro has made “Today” a team mantra, to get the team to focus on the things right in front of them rather than worrying about things down the line. But that also means putting the past behind them.
The call is over, there is nothing that can be done about that. How the Royals respond is very much under their control.
