Aaron Rowand hits a ball into the right field corner, and Vlad bobbles it. Rowand goes for three, Guerrero over throws two cutoff men and Rowand makes it easily. The ball bounds away from Quinlan and Rowand heads home. Quinlan recovers, throws home, and just nips Rowand at the plate. It looked a lot closer on the replay than it did in real time.
I can’t fault Rowand for going on the play. The coach sent him, and there was a good chance Aaron could make it. Instead, the White Sox have a scoreless second inning.
It looked like Rowand had a really bad first step from 3rd to home. Understandable, since he’d just sprinted around the bases and dove head-first into 3rd.
I’d fault everyone involved in that play. There’s no excuse — Ozzie-ball or Moneyball or just plain old baseball. If you’re leading off an inning and can turn a double into a triple, just stop there. That run scores nearly 100 percent of the time.
Benjamin, could you rationalize all that in under a tenth of a second? No fault of anyone involved. It took a great throw to nail him. Hats off to the fielder who actually executed on that play.