Little details, Big Papi dominate World Series

BOSTON, MA – OCTOBER 30: David Ortiz #34 of the Boston Red Sox, whose skills apparently include bat levitation, led his team to a win against the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2013 World Series at Fenway Park on October 30, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

The Boston Red Sox are celebrating a World Series win, while fans of all teams are all still revelling in a great spectacle, but at one stage it certainly didn’t look like the play on the field would be the biggest talking point.

With the World Series tied 1-1 and the game tied at 4-4, with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, and a runner on 3rd base, the stage was set for drama. Instead, what followed was nearly comical. Red Sox 3rd baseman Will Middlebrooks (possibly intentionally) tripped the baserunner, leading to an interference call, scoring the runner from 3rd and ending the game 5-4 to the Cardinals. A walk-off foul, on a little used rule.

All sports are riddled with tiny little detailed rules, like the technique required to avoid a foul throw-in, or the number of fielders allowed behind square on the leg side; there to keep the game running, but never meant for the spot light, and Baseball is no exception. With the Baseball world still in heated discussion about the controversial ending to game 3, the details were threatening to take over on the biggest stage, before another reared its head to end game 4 (though fortunately much less controversially).

Any runner on base can be tagged out at any time. It’s a rule that’s important for the game to function properly, but it rarely affects the outcome. With the tying run at the plate, and, again, one out left in the 9th inning, rookie Kolten Wong of the Cardinals wasn’t paying enough attention, and was picked off by Koji Uehara of the Red Sox, ending the game and levelling the series.

Two games in a row, and half the series so far, turning from a thrilling finale to end in an anticlimax. Would the trend continue, or would normal play resume and the best team come out on top?

Fortunately, for lovers of the game, with the Series poised at 2-2, the little details were replaced by the big names, with none coming up bigger than David ‘Big Papi’ Ortiz. Ortiz, who hit for a .309 batting average (an average of 309 hits per thousand trips to the plate – a very good average these days) with 30 HRs in the 162-game regular season, hit 2 homers in the 6-game Series, while averaging .688.

In the end, the Series balanced almost entirely on the performance of just a few star players. While Ortiz was unstoppable, no other Red Sox hitter was able to produce numbers on the big stage, as their 2nd best regular player was out-hit by 6 of the Cardinals 9 starters.

Instead the Red Sox were carried by strong pitching, almost entirely provided by star starting pitchers Jon Lester and John Lackey, who combined to pitch 29 1/3 innings, giving up only 5 runs while striking out 26 batters. No other pitcher threw more than 4 2/3 innings for the Sox, who won only 1 game not started by Lackey or Lester. That was game 4, where Lackey came in to the game as a relief pitcher in a tight situation, before handing over to the closer Uehara, who himself appeared in 5 games and gave up no runs.

The opposite story damned the Cardinals, as they received solid production from most of their team, but none good enough to push them over the top. Most of the lineup was hitting, but none like Ortiz. The starting pitchers were adequate, but none could match Lester. The relief pitchers threw well, but were too rarely given leads to defend.

True stars are said to burn brightest on the biggest stage, and Red Sox fans will be delighted that theirs were at their best when it mattered most (and pretty great for the rest of the year too!). Hard to imagine Cardinals fans can be too disappointed, after reaching 2 of the last 3 World Series, and falling just one game short in the intervening year. Their big names weren’t quite big enough this time around, but they’ll be back for sure.