The Los Angeles Dodgers forced a Game 7 Friday night as a result of a heads-up play by Kike Hernandez.
The veteran utility man threw the ball to second base to double off Addison Barger and end Game 6 after making a routine catch in left field. Some people in baseball are crediting Hernandez’s awareness to make the play, but former New York Yankees infielder Alex Rodriguez didn’t hesitate with making his feelings known about the Blue Jays’ baserunning.
“”I don’t care how good those plays were, they should have never happened,” Rodriguez said on the FOX postgame show. “Because when you are at second base, there is no way, zero percent, that you can get doubled up there.”
With runners on second and third with one out, it’s very obvious what Barger was thinking down at second base: score on a base hit and tie the game to force extra innings. Not that either team was wanting another 18 inning marathon game, but Toronto was determined to make the game go at least 10 innings.
This play happened just a few moments after Barger’s double to left center was stuck in the padding of the wall which resulted in a ground-rule double for Toronto, a play that will be talked about for weeks after the World Series wraps up.
“I was pretty surprised he got to it,” Barger told ESPN’s Jesse Rogers about the play. “Off the bat, I thought it was going to go (right) over the shortstop’s head. I didn’t think it was going to travel that far. It was kind of a bad read.”
It may have been a bad read, but he wasn’t the only member of the Blue Jays who felt that way.
“I thought it was getting down 1,000 percent,” Isiah Kiner-Falefa told Rogers.
“It’s a tough read,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider admitted to Rogers. “(Hernandez) playing shallow and one out, you’re thinking score. He made a really good play. It’s such a tweener. He made a good play, good throw. Good play by Rojas too. Wild. Wild way to finish it, for sure.”
The Blue Jays now have to hope they can close it out in Game 7 or else this mistake will live rent free in the team’s head for a long, long time.
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