Texas Rangers’ Rougned Odor, left, celebrates with Prince Fielder after scoring a run during the seventh inning in Game 5 of baseball’s American League Division Series against the Toronto Blue Jays, Wednesday… A controversial call in the seventh inning put the Texas Rangers up 3-2.
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The Blue Jays became the first team since the 2012 San Francisco Giants to be down two games to none in the LDS and come back and win it. Blue Jays manager John Gibbons argued and protested the game.
And they’ll be monitoring the crowd when the Jays play at home for Game 3 on Monday.
People were suddenly jumping up and down with completely uninhibited joy – and those were just the players in the Blue Jays dugout, those cool, detached guns-for-hire who channelled their inner and outer fan even more zealously than the 50,000 bystanders who paid to have their emotions toyed with at the most extreme levels of the sport.
The Rangers blew a one-run lead and loaded the bases on those errors – made on consecutive batters – in the seventh inning, but Dyson was most offended by Jose Bautista’s exuberant bat flip after Bautista crushed a go-ahead, three-run home run that traveled an estimated 442 feet.
“I threw the ball like I always do – I’ve done it probably over a million times – it’s never happened”, he said. “I understand their reaction”. The home plate umpire initially called the play dead, which should have stopped everything, but later reversed the decision after meeting to discuss it. I went wait a minute, wait a minute, there’s no intent on the hitter. After the Rangers’ run that scored on the ricocheted ball back to the pitcher, fans at Rogers Centre were not pleased with the ruling and began throwing debris onto the field.
If the batter interferes with the catcher’s throw to retire a runner by stepping out of the batter’s box, interference shall be called on the batter under Official Baseball Rule 6.03(a)(3) (former OBR 6.06(c)).
Prior to the game, Rangers manager Jeff Banister told reporters, per ESPN.com’s Jean-Jacques Taylor, that situations like Wednesday’s game were the reason the team acquired Hamels in July. After a delay of 2 minutes, 32 seconds, the play stood and fans continued to throw objects on the field.
“Every closer in this game has something a little bit off about them and Osuna definitely has that – I think you need to have that to throw the ninth inning and get those key three outs”. “So I know the organization is proud of those guys”. It was a franchise-defining moment for one that hasn’t had many.
Things devolved further in the bottom half as the Rangers made three errors to load the bases with none out.
Insane play No. 5: After a force at home, Sam Dyson came on on to face Josh Donaldson.
The Rangers got pinch-runner Dalton Pompey out at home with the Rangers upset at the take-no-prisoners slide that took out catcher Chris Gimenez.
One batter later, Jose Bautista launched a baseball halfway to orbit, giving the Blue Jays a 6-3 lead. Dyson took exception and walked over to confront Encarnacion, leading to both dugouts and both bullpens emptying.
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During the scrum that was quickly dissolved, 20 Toronto police officers stood across the outfield, while others gathered along the foul lines.
