Oct 26, 2013; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals designated hitter Allen Craig (21) is tripped by Boston Red Sox third baseman Will Middlebrooks (16) during the ninth inning and would score on an obstruction call to win game three of the MLB baseball World Series at Busch Stadium. Cardinals won 5-4. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports
I don’t have to tell you that was one of the wildest finishes to a baseball game in quite sometime. The St. Louis Cardinals are now up 2-1 on the Boston Red Sox in the World Series with their 5-4 victory.
They got the walk off victory thanks to the obstruction rule enforced by the umpire involving third baseman Will Middlebrooks and Allen Craig. I will get to this later and explain the rule that led to the wild finish.
The Cardinals got another strong start from one of their young pitchers in Joe Kelly. He lasted 5.1 innings with two runs allowed and gave up two hits to include six strikeouts.
Red Sox starter Jake Peavy gave it his best effort where he just threw four innings and surrendered two runs with four strikeouts.
The best part of the start for him was when he worked out of bases loaded no out situation in the fourth inning and kept the Cardinals from scoring.
St. Louis scored twice in the first inning from singles by Matt Holliday and Yadier Molina. Holliday was not done doing damage, as he doubled in two more runs in the seventh.
The Red Sox did not get their first run until Mike Carp grounded into a force out in the fifth inning.
Then in the sixth inning Daniel Nava singled in another run. Nava in the eighth inning also grounded into a force out that brought another run home.
Xander Bogaerts in the same inning singled to center to tie the game and it looked like Boston would make a great comeback victory.
The ninth inning for St. Louis is where the fun begins. They already have Molina on first base and Craig comes in to pinch hit against Koji Uehara.
He lines the first pitch from Uehara to left field for a double and with Jon Jay batting you would think Red Sox skipper John Farrell intentionally walks him to face light-hitting Pete Kozma.
Dustin Pedroia makes a great play to throw Molina out at home and instead of that being the end of sequence catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia makes a bad decision in attempting to throw out Craig going to third base.
The throw is off target and forces Middlebrooks to fall on the ground. Craig sees this as an opportunity to score the winning run, but trips over the third baseman as he continues running.
After this happens third base umpire Jim Joyce calls obstruction on Middlebrooks, who interfered with Craig when he broke home on the bad throw from Saltalamacchia.
Joyce made the correct call in this situation. Obstruction, according to the rulebook, is “the act of a fielder who, while not in possession of the ball and not in the act of fielding the ball, impedes the progress of any runner.”
This is exactly what happened and it’s a shame the game had to end this way.