The Padres came back to beat the Dodgers on a crazy play Saturday, tying the game on a steal of home with two outs in the top of the ninth and scoring the go-ahead run on the same sequence.
The Padres had runners on the corners with no outs before Kenley Jansen got a strikeout and a pop out in a 6-5 game. Will Venable had stolen second in the meantime, putting two men in scoring position for Alexi Amarista. During Amarista’s at-bat, Jansen was kicking at the mound and not really paying attention to the runner, allowing Everth Cabrera to take off from third. Jansen noticed in time to potentially make a play, but the throw sailed over the head of catcher A.J. Ellis, who was also very late to react.
The third man caught napping in the sequence was home plate umpire Greg Gibson. He initially called Cabrera out at home, even though Ellis never so much as touched the ball, which was sitting by the backstop. Gibson changed his call, and Ellis, again apparently still trying to figure out what was going on, finally gathered the ball too late to prevent Venable from scoring the go-ahead run. It didn’t help that Jansen was slow to cover the plate.
In the end, it was simply a colossal failure from the Dodgers’ battery, though ansen deserves most of the blame. Give credit to Cabrera, who was in the game as a pinch-runner. He’s now 16-for-16 stealing bases this year. After Amarista was retired on a groundout, Huston Street went on to pitch a scoreless bottom of the ninth, giving the Padres a 7-6 victory.
