Nice baserunning

Carl Crawford did his best Cuddyer impression and ran the Rays out of a big inning last night. It was tied 2-2 in the 9th when Nathan allows a single and then Crawford lines a double to right.

"That'll open the floodgates" Steve said, as we watched the game together. I concurred. I thought it was over, 2nd and 3rd with nobody out. In this situation the Rays have a run expectancy of 2.0363. So on average they will score 2 runs.

Yet Crawford kept running to third. Then back to second, yet he did not run back to second with the same enthusiasm that he ran past second.

The throw came in from the outfield Mauer tagged the lead runner and threw to second to complete the improbable and completely stupid double play.

At first, I thought it was completely stupid. It was. Crawfford should have just walked into second. But something else was going on here, Crawford had some sort of brainfart.

When I saw the replay on Baseball Tonight they showed Crawford running from second to third, which is stupid in its own right. He never looked up to see the lead runner, it was almost as if, he did not realize there was another runner. Even so, what was he thinking trying to stretch it to a triple?

Cuddyer has a good arm, there are no outs and there is a runner in front of him.

But if you watch it again it looks like he was going to keep running home. He came to third intending to round third. He rounded second and then came at third at an angle that told me he was going to keep running. I'd be surprised if he intended to slide into third, he did not look like he was going to.

For some reason I think he planned on running home. As much as this does not make sense, watch him. If you can see the camera on him I think you will agree with me. It was a brainfart.