Personal Dork Assistant

Stupid Baseball Rules

Nothing like a fantasy league to turn yourself into a rules geek. In the Cubs - White Sox game yesterday, Joe Borowski came in to pitch for the Cubs with a 5-2 lead, one out in the bottom of the 9th inning, and nobody on base. He got the last two outs without trouble. Chalk up a save for the team, right? Nope. Was about to write Yahoo! tech-support to bitch about their stat updates but decided to look up the Save rule first. Lo, Rule 10.20.3.a states:

Credit a pitcher with a save when...

He enters the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitches for at least one inning.

So the blame goes to Dusty Baker for bringing in Remlinger at the top of the 9th to match up with the pinch-hitter Armando Rios, then leaving him in there when the Sox pinch-hit Sandy Alomar Jr. for Rios. All of which was stupid anyway since there wasn't much platoon advantage to be had either way. Could've used that Save, too. Argh.