I Guess That's Why They're the Rays...

With no Brewers to watch last night, I caught the end of the Rays/Twins game (god love my free preview of MLB Extra Innings). I happened to witness what I believe was the worst baserunning blunder I have ever seen. By an All-Star player, nonetheless. I'll attempt to explain.

It's 2-2, top of the 9th inning, Rays up to bat, Joe Nathan on the mound. First guy (never heard of him) gets a hit. Now Carl Crawford is at the plate. He laces a ball to right field. The Twins right fielder plays it pretty well and gets it into the infield in a hurry. The guy on first makes it to third but the third base coach throws up the stop sign, because there are no outs.

Seems pretty routine, right?

No. These are the Rays we're talking about.

Carl had his mind set on a triple as soon as he hit that ball, and is running as only Carl can run as he whips around second on the way to third. One big problem: a Ray is already on third base. This guy realizes that Crawford is coming, so he breaks for home, which is actually a smart play, because at worst then you have Carl Crawford standing at third base with one down, and with his wheels he can easily score on a wild pitch or a sac fly or something. So this guy, who has done everything right so far, gets caught in a rundown b/w 3rd and home, and eventually gets tagged out.

While this rundown is going on, inexplicably, Crawford heads back to second base! Mauer tags out the guy that was in a rundown and then, unable to believe his good luck, fires to second and they tag Crawford out too. If Crawford would have just stood on third base, he's there with one down. Now, instead of having a guy at 2nd and 3rd, no out, or (at worst) Crawford at 3rd with one down, the Rays now have nobody on and 2 out.

Unbelievable.

Naturally, the Rays don't score, and Justin Morneau hits a walk off bomb to win the game in the bottom of the ninth. If the Brewers had just done that, I think I would have quit watching baseball for the rest of the year.