Most of you have probably seen the ball Emil Brown failed to catch in the eighth inning of the A’s loss to Tampa Bay on Tuesday. If you haven’t, here’s the short version: Brown lost a ball in the lights, and instead of an inning-ending flyout, Dioner Navarro’s ball went for a game-winning double.
The ball originally ruled an error by official scorer David Bush. My question is that why it didn’t remain that way. Brown did lose the ball in the lights, and there is the reasoning that no player should be penalized for such a thing. But Brown also took a lousy route to the ball, and in doing so, may have put himself in harm’s way.
To Brown’s credit, he said all the right things after the game. And to Bush’s credit, he consulted with Brown before changing the call.
But in conversing with some people before the game, one A’s insider said that Brown should’ve worn the error, and I thought it was a good point. As this person said, it was bad enough that Brown’s failure to catch ball saddled Greg Smith with a loss, but by not insisting that he be charged with an error, Brown also saddled both pitchers with some additional earned runs.
Simply put, that’s not the team thing to do.
