Saturday’s game wasn’t televised, so I’m not sure how many of you followed it.  Either way, there was a very interesting play in the 10th inning that had a major impact on the game.

The video of this play can be viewed at this link.

It’s the top of the 10th inning.  Seattle is up 3-2 and has runners on 1st and 2ndbase with one out.  Jose Lopez hits a grounder towards shortstop Jhonny Peralta, but it hits Adrian Beltre, who was running from 2nd to 3rd.  Beltre is called out and the play is dead, resulting in runners at 1st and 2nd with two outs. 

Clevelandmanager Eric Wedge comes out to argue that Cleveland should’ve been awarded two outs because that grounder probably results in an inning ending double play had Beltre not interfered.  Wedge gets tossed from the game and Seattle winds up scoring their fourth run later in the inning, which ended up being huge since Seattle one by a final score of 4-3. 

When I heard the call on radio I wasn’t sure whether or not Beltre let the grounder hit him intentionally or not.  Beltre often makes a point to get as close to grounders as possible as a way of obstructing the fielder’s view, but I can’t remember him ever getting hit by one.  Upon seeing the video I think it’s a little more obvious that he let it hit him intentionally.  It didn’t clip the back of his heel, it hit him right in the shoulder/chest area! 

Beltre seems like a smart guy and he could’ve guessed that it would have been an inning ending double play, so it makes sense that he’d break up the play and help Seattle bring home the win because of it.  But the question I would like to pose to you is this: Assuming it was intentional, was Beltre’s interference a brilliant heads up play, or kind of Busch league? 

I’m on the fence.  On one hand, that was some quick thinking out there.  On the other, the Indians did everything right to induce the grounder and get themselves out of a jam.  If the same thing happened with Seattle in the field we’d all be outraged!

This could be an interesting debate, because many plays deemed “Busch league” have their own level of brilliance in them, whether we’re talking about Alex Rodriguez yelling “I got it!” while running the bases to cause a popup to drop, or Sean Avery blocking goalie Martin Broduer’s view in the NHL playoffs.