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• Next Batter: Pinch hitter Danny Heep. Heep grounds into a double play while
Knight scores from 3rd. Tie game. Knight would not have scored if the E9 didn’t
occur (since he would have held up at 2nd). He would have either advanced to
3rd on the DP or forced out at 3rd. And if Strawberry had been thrown out, the
inning would have been over and no run scored. We’ll never know.
Four mistakes by Boston costs them two runs and a tie game 2-2.
7th Inning
In the seventh, the Red Sox took a one run lead partly due to a Ray Knight’s throwing error. Boston up 3-2.
Bottom of 8th Inning
Move to the bottom of the eighth inning. Boston up by one run and the Mets are at the plate. Boston relief pitcher Calvin Schiraldi now on the mound.
• Lead off: Lee Mazzilli singles
• Next Batter: Lenny Dykstra. Dykstra lays down a bunt but it goes to pitcher
Schiraldi who fields it cleanly and throws to second for the force. The throw is
low and short hops the covering shortstop Spike Owen who cannot come up
with the throw. All Mets are safe.
MISTAKE: E1. Poor throw to second. Good throw would have gotten the force
out. Alternatively, Schiraldi throws to 1st and gets the out.
• Next batter: Wally Backman. Sacrifice bunt advances the runners to second
and third.
MISTAKE: Third baseman Wade Boggs, instead of keeping position (pitcher has
third base line responsibility in this situation), charges the bunt leaving third
base open. The bunt comes back to pitcher Schiraldi and he fields it cleanly,
turns to force the runner at third but Boggs is out-of-position so Schiraldi has
no choice but to get the out at first allowing all base runners to advance. If
Boggs held his position, they would have gotten the force at third and kept
runners positioned for a possible double play to get out of the inning.
As you can see in the first picture, pitcher Schiraldi has the ball turning to throw to third.
Boggs isn’t there. If Boggs held his position it would have been an easy force.