This "Hit" Is What Prevented The Tigers From Throwing Their Second No-Hitter This Season

I already wrote a blog about last night's Detroit Tigers game. It was one of the wildest victories that the Tigers had had in quite a while. The young buck Parker Meadows hit a walk-off home run for his first career tater. It was a remarkable moment. What was lost in all of this is that the Tigers were one out away from losing a game in which they gave up one hit to the Houston Astros. Matt Manning, Brendan White, and Alex Lange were really solid. Remember that Manning was on the mound when the Tigers threw their combined no-hitter last month against the Toronto Blue Jays. It would've been an embarrassing loss if not for the Tigers late-inning heroics. So, while I'm very happy they won when you take a look at the play that was responsible for the Astros' only hit, I can't help but roll my eyes at the scorekeeper's ruling. 

The Tigers played remarkably sloppy baseball last night. They made a combined four errors, including two catcher interference calls. I usually see one catcher's interference call a year across all of Major League Baseball. The fact that I saw two in one game made me want to pull my hair out. Maybe whoever was keeping score of this game just felt bad for the Tigers and didn't want to give them another error, but I'm sorry, this play was an error. You cannot convince me José Altuve deserved a hit on this play. If not for this ruling, the Tigers would've had a miracle walk-off win and a combined no-hitter on the same night. 

Look, I don't give a shit about a combined no-hitter. The Tigers have already thrown one this year at a game I was at. It was a cool moment, but I acknowledge that combined no-hitters are things that teams celebrate. In the grand scheme of the baseball world, they're relatively insignificant. The accomplishment means very little to me. I'm just glad they won the game. What matters to me is the principle of this. Baseball has been trying for years to reward players who put the ball in play. In the age of the true outcomes, a player like Jose Altuve is considered a breath of fresh air. I understand, but we've gone way too far in the other direction. Every third baseman who doesn't have their head up their ass makes that play. It's an error. It was an error twenty years ago. It was an error ten years ago, but for some reason, it's not an error today. That is baffling to me, and it happens every night.

I love the new rules in Major League Baseball, but I knowledge that pretty much all of them favor the hitter. Starting pitchers aren't as dominant this year as we've seen them in previous seasons. There was a minute there in which pitchers putting up ERA's in the low two's was commonplace. I have no issue with the rule changes, but I feel like a good middle ground would be to ensure we are more critical of mistakes made by fielders. A bad error can potentially impact a pitcher's ERA for the rest of the season. We're already seeing more action, more stolen bases, and more balls put in play. That's good for the game, as is making sure when a player boofs a routine ground ball, it's called an error.