Well, let’s see what happened today. I only saw parts of the game from the 9th inning on, but here’s what I saw:
The Sox scored the winning run in the bottom of the 9th due to a wild pitch and then a balk, allowing the winning run to score. More unforced errors/gifts, which happens every game. By the way, the Sox postgame announcers said they didn’t see what the pitcher did to cause a balk to be called.
The strike-three call Santos got in the 9th was ridiculous.
Just to catch up, it’s obvious to all that the umps stole the fifth Cub-Sox game. Humber had nothing at all early in the game. He said, “I didn’t have anything working.” The Cubs had 2 on, no out, in the first and didn’t score, and when the same thing happened in the second, it set the tone of the game and gave him confidence and kept the Cubs frustrated. If not for the ridiculous call on the “double play,” the Cubs have second and third, one out, and are facing a pitcher who by his own admission has nothing. The Sox radio announcers said “the umpires obviously wanted to help Beckham,” and the Sun-Times said: “Outside of the traditional blind-umpire defense, there are two possibilities about what was going on with the second-base umpire Saturday. Either he had a 5:30 p.m. dinner reservation or his is Gordon Beckham’s long-lost uncle.” He went on to say “Beckham didn’t come close to stepping on the bag.” He then said there is leeway given on the pivot of a double play, “but this wasn’t even close.” ESPN also showed the play a number of times, talking about how bad the call was, as did Fox. This is the 6th or 7th time since interleague play that the umps have stolen a Cub-Sox game from the Cubs.
Since Garza was mowing down the Sox, getting some runs in this inning would have been critical, and also hurt Humber’s confidence for the rest of the game, since he was struggling with his pitches. They might even have knocked him out of the game, or he might have had to leave for a pinch hitter. The game was scoreless into the 6th and the Sox were hitless, so this opportunity was critical. As it was, the Sox scored the lone run of the game on gifts–a leadoff walk, and a wild pitch that put the runner on third, allowing him to score on the hit (he wouldn’t have scored from second).
All of these bad calls and gifts keep the Sox in contention. They would be many more games out of first if not for these daily occurrences.