NEWSLETTER
What happens if players are doing their thing, completely like normal, no mistakes made by any human … but the ball gets away, outside the normal course of business, and runner(s) advance? We know that, typically, if a fielder makes a mistake that allows a runner to advance, that’s an error. But what if nobody actually did anything wrong?
I ask it that way because that happened to the Colorado Rockies last night, and the result was perhaps the most unfair error ever given to a first baseman in MLB history:
I do get that you have to … score that somehow. And since C.J. Cron did not make the catch on a good throw, and his lack of a catch is what caused a runner to advance, that has to be an error on him. I checked the game log just to confirm: “David Villar advances to second on a missed catch error on first baseman C.J. Cron.”
But he didn’t do anything wrong! The ball just went through his glove! Give the error to the glove! People will think Cron simply cannot catch perfectly-thrown baseballs!
I mean, I guess you could argue Cron’s mistake was in failing to properly maintain his glove or something? If he were more diligent in checking the webbing he could have prevented such a disaster? Is that worthy of an official error in the scorebook? I guess so!
Insult to injury? The Rockies lost the game, and doing so officially eliminated them from postseason contention. At least they lost the game by more than one run.
