Early on in Wednesday’s Game 7 of the World Series, Cubs second baseman Javy Baez made two errors. Then he hit a home run.
Later, in the bottom of the fifth inning, David Ross allowed a Jon Lester wild pitch to carom far away from him, allowing two Indians runs to score. He followed that up in the top of the sixth with… yep, a home run.
This is particularly fun because the 39-year-old Ross is retiring after this season, meaning after Wednesday’s game. And also because the homer came off un-hittable Indians lefty Andrew Miller.
When we tweeted about how Ross had redeemed himself, some people tried to claim he didn’t deserve any responsibility for the two runs that scored on the wild pitch because it wasn’t technically a passed ball.
But a catcher’s job is to keep the ball in front of him when a pitch winds up in the dirt, and Ross instead allowed Lester’s errant offering to bounce all the way to the first-base dug-out. At least one of those runs is on him.
In fact, the runners were only on second and third because Ross had thrown away a dribbler in front of the plate a batter earlier.
Anyway, it’s all forgiven now, and if the 6-3 score holds, Ross will go out as a champion and have the rest of his life to bask in his big home run.