Another dandy from Randy
His lack of effort on a foul ball is widely criticized and rightfully so
BEND, Ore. - I was working as a course marshal at Brasada Ranch yesterday and didn’t know anything about the latest negative Randy Arozarena development until I got an emailed notice with a headline from the Seattle Times…
“Arozarena’s defense derails Mariners in loss to Tampa Bay Rays”
One of my kids, Mikey, proceeded to show me a replay of what happened when Arozarena failed to make a full effort to catch a foul ball down the left-field line.
I’m not quite sure if I’ve ever seen anything like that. We’ve seen runners jog to first base when they know they’re not going to beat out a ground ball, but this was different, wasn’t it?
If Randy had run faster, with more purpose, even just a little faster, he not only could have caught that ball, there’s a chance he wouldn’t have had to dive for it.
Before I saw the replay, I thought maybe he held up because he was concerned about running into a wall by the stands or something like that. But no, there was plenty of foul territory for him on that one, and besides, Randy played in that ballpark for several years, surely he of all left fielders would know how much room he had on a ball like that.
And then you could fairly think that Randy just pulled up because he was concerned about lingering soreness in his hamstring, but no, he told reporters after the game:
“It wasn’t because of the hamstring, I just didn’t get to it.”
Know what this says about Randy? One of two things: