CLEVELAND – At the end of the day, putting aside the drama and controversy over the fact that two innings happened, the official scorer made it right.
Chandler Simpson’s groundball hit from Paul Goldschmidt’s gloves on six Sundays at Stein Brenner Field, and could have been called that way given Simpson’s lightning speed, as Max Fried wasn’t working on a no-hitter at the time.
Of course, he initially dominated the error and then changed to a hit midway through the eighth innings. Jogging to the mound, he is still unharmed and essentially just to lose it twice, a few minutes later, with a scoring change, just to lose it.
“The reality is that it was a hit,” manager Aaron Boone said after Simpson’s grounder.
However, Snafu opened the door for some commentary on the status of official scoring around the league, and Boone took the trouble to provide his thoughts.
“Look, I scratch my head every night at the official scorer,” Boone said. “I mean, they throw an error on the board at Yankee Stadium, we go to these other places and they can hit with their best. It’s a different game in all other parks, that’s really true.
“But I sometimes get involved that year, like, ‘What are we doing?’ ”
In recent years there has been much more generous around the league, with many stadiums keen to call something a hit rather than an error, something closer to a toss-up play. Yankee Stadium, as Boone pointed out, was often the exception to that trend.
“Look, it’s probably a very unappreciative job and a lot of hard work on the line,” Boone said of the official score. “I certainly respect that and respect how difficult it is [it is]but sometimes I have problems I have in places that are very hit-friendly and not so.
“But we’re talking about it once a year affects one guy. I talk about this a lot, so overall I think it’s actually okay. But sometimes there’s a problem.
The players most affected by the changes in scoring on Sunday had little problem with it. If it was the only hit, the Yankees would probably sing another song, but it wasn’t.
“I try not to look into anything like that,” he said. “I know [Simpson] It was in one base so it doesn’t matter if it’s a hit or an error. ”
