LOS ANGELES – When Jason Heyward hit a ball into the right-center gap, the crowd at Dodger Stadium erupted. For a second, it looked like the Dodgers would score two runs on a double to the wall.
Instead, Rangers center fielder Leodi Taveras was able to cut in deep down the right sideline. But a small bobble from Taveras helped cause chaos in the final game that saw starter Andy Paige thrown out — despite being caught by third base coach Dino Ebel — in the Dodgers’ 3-2 loss to the Rangers on Wednesday at Dodger Stadium.
“Once upon a time, Leo bobbed it, I [was] Get nervous out there, but you know these guys are going to do a good job on defense,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “This game is just a beautiful game when played online and it doesn’t get any better than that. It was a fun game,” he said.
Pages, who had an error based on a game against the Yankees over the weekend, said he tried to score once when he saw Taveras scratch the ball up the middle. The Cuban rookie outfielder positioned himself and didn’t see Ebel, who was halfway down the line, signal a stop.
Had Pages grounded out to third, Dodgers newly acquired Cavan Biggio would have scored the game-winning run.
“From the first moment I knew I was going to finish third. “But as I saw the center fielder make a little mistake, I just thought about scoring that tying run,” Paige said in Spanish. “You learn from those things. Unfortunately, those things have to happen in order for you to improve.”
After the game, Paige sat down with first base coach Clayton McCullough at the locker room to discuss the play more.
“It’s one of those things; You’ve got a young player who doesn’t have a lot of experience, and you tie him up and that’s how you learn,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. But he still took a perfect throw and a killer pass, and they had a great game.
For the Rangers, it was a game they desperately needed to avoid extra innings and use extra pins heading into Thursday’s series finale.
The key to the game came from second baseman Marcus Siemian, who took a pass from Taveras in right center and hit Jonas Heim at the plate with a perfect shot. While all the focus was on Pages running through the stop sign, if Simmons hadn’t made a solid throw at the plate, the Dodgers would have tied the game at 3.
“If Leodi caught the ball cleanly and I wanted him to get the ball to second base and I said, ‘Here we go, maybe four,'” Semmen said. “It looked like Dino picked him up at third, but he ran him over. I figured he was going to run anyway, so it’s definitely a good feeling for me outside of that.”
As Heim confirmed the throw, all he had to do was slide a little to the left to find pages on the plate. After the game, the Dodgers challenged the on-field call to see if Hamm had blocked the plate. A quick review confirmed Rangers’ perfectly executed relay as a departure. And in turn, Texas now has a chance to take the series at Dodger Stadium on Thursday.
“Good by Jonas, good tag,” Semin said, “very good by him.” We had a similar situation last year in Chicago where he was called upon to close the plate, but he was proud to make sure he did. He made it perfect today.