The SportsNet New York Mets’ booth of Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez has often been known for some notable takes. The ones that get the most attention tend to be from analysts Hernandez and Darling, but Cohen’s chipped in his share over the years as well. And he produced quite the one Monday night, absolutely unloading on the Arizona Diamondbacks and manager Torey Lovullo after they let Tim Locastro (the potential winning run in the bottom of the ninth) steal second base:
The Diamondbacks decided to play behind Tim Locastro (the potential winning run) at first base instead of holding him on pic.twitter.com/KsKqIrhW5Y
— SNY (@SNYtv) September 12, 2023
“They’re going to play behind him! He is the winning run! What are they doing? What are they doing? They’re playing behind him! They’re giving him the stolen base! That’s the winning run! Are you kidding me? Back to a slider, misses, ball one. What are they thinking? How do you allow the winning run to steal second base? That is as boneheaded of a managerial decision as I’ve seen all season long! Unreal.”
This didn’t actually wind up mattering, as batter Brandon Nimmo flied out to center on the 1-2 pitch to end the game as a 4-3 Diamondbacks’ win. But Cohen had a point here; it was certainly curious for Arizona to make it this easy for Locastro to take second and move into potential scoring position from a single, especially with two outs.
One argument in favor of doing so is not throwing to second or making a pickoff throw to first to avoid the runner on third going home for a game-tying run. But even there, teams often make it seem like they’ll throw, even if they don’t. Another is letting a runner steal second to then intentionally walk the batter and have a force play at every base. But that also didn’t happen.
And while this worked out fine for the Diamondbacks, it was an unusual decision, and it was interesting to hear such fervent criticism of it from the opposing TV booth. And this fits into some of the fun things from Cohen we’ve seen over the years.
[SNY on Twitter]
