The Dodgers, the Braves, a Blown Call, and the Balance of the Universe

I've been meaning to write about this game for a while now because I thought it was so fascinating. Rarely do you see a game that features both an odd turn of events and a brilliantly profound ending.

It took place last summer, the night of August 7th, 2009. The Braves were playing against the Dodgers in L.A. Braves pitcher Jair Jurrjens was pitching to Andre Ethier in the bottom of the fifth inning. Rafael Furcal was on first, no outs, score tied 2-2.

Jurrjens threw a full count pitch to Ethier while Furcal attempted to steal second. Ethier took the pitch without swinging, and the home plate umpire raised his arm to signal strike three. Catcher Brian McCann then threw to second just in time for Furcal to get tagged out on the steal attempt. Double play.

But no. The umpire then explained to the teams that what had been believed to be the third strike was actually ball four. Essentially, he changed his mind, since it was a very close call, location-wise, and he did appear to call strike three initially. So instead of bases empty, two outs, it was now runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs. Naturally, Braves manager Bobby Cox came out to argue the call, for which he was ejected.

The next batter was Manny Ramirez, who struck out. Under the original call, this would've been the end of the inning. Instead, it was only the first out. The next batter, Casey Blake, came up and hit a 3-run home run. I remember watching all of this on TV in utter bewilderment. "Great," I thought. "The Dodgers are up by three now because of a bad call. It sucks to see a team get screwed over like that." I was having flashbacks of the infamous Ed Hochuli call in the 2008 Chargers/Broncos matchup.

Dodgers pitcher Chad Billingsley continued to pitch well in the sixth inning. Then, randomly, he tweaked a hamstring during an at-bat in the bottom of the sixth, so he had to be taken out of the game. He was replaced by relief pitcher Hong-Chi Kuo, who proceeded to give up two runs in the seventh, bringing the Braves to within one. Then in the ninth, the usually outstanding Jonathan Broxton gave up a run in the ninth to send the game into extra innings. Suddenly, the blown call didn't seem to matter any more. It took a few innings, but things were right back to where they were in the fifth. Ultimately, the Braves scored four runs in the twelfth inning to win the game 9-5.

All in all, it was a really crazy game to follow from the fifth inning non-strikeout to the end. A bizarre call was followed shortly by a bizarre injury. (Nothing serious, luckily. Just something that resulted in a hot pitcher being removed for a guy who promptly gave two-thirds of the team's lead back.) The ill-gotten three-run lead was gone by the ninth inning and the bad call was ultimately rendered meaningless. The Braves won, as they should have.

It really makes you think about the infinite number of parts at work in world and God's role in making everything come together. Not that God would devote His power to something as insignificant as making a team win or lose a game. It's just fascinating to see how things work out sometimes, how the universe seems to have a way of balancing itself out. That's all.