Is there anything more universal than dwelling on what you could’ve done differently at a given moment in your life?
Nearly a month removed from a gut-wrenching World Series loss, it stands to reason that everyone involved in the Blue Jays’ heart-stopping run is reliving the memories and the regrets.
Don Mattingly is one such case, as he spoke about the heartbreak in an appearance on an episode of The Show podcast with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman of the New York Post.
The former Blue Jays bench coach said that if there was one play he and the team could’ve handled differently, it would be the Isiah Kiner-Falefa base-running play in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7.
“That’s probably the one play that you feel like, if we really looked at that over again and had a little split second more time and said, ‘Hey, we can be off further at third because (Daulton) Varsho is not lining out to third. If he lines out to the first, we can get that back, right? We got a little more time,’” Mattingly said when asked about the one play he wishes he could’ve handled differently. “So that’s the one thing that you can change. But not IKF’s fault — it’s probably all of our faults.”
The play was a backbreaker for the Blue Jays. Kiner-Falefa was at third with the bases loaded and Varsho up to the plate to face Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers hurler appearing in the Blue Jays’ collective nightmares.
Varsho hit a soft grounder to second baseman Miguel Rojas, who fielded the ball and threw it to catcher Will Smith to get the out on Kiner-Falefa at home plate.
It was a ridiculously tight play, with officials putting the call under the microscope before confirming the out, but it could’ve swung the other way had Kiner-Falefa taken a slightly bigger lead off the third-base bag.
Mattingly mentioned that, in the moment, it felt as though Kiner-Falefa was taking an appropriate lead off the bag, preventing the possibility of a double play should Varsho line out to third base. But what they didn’t consider in those split-second decisions is that Varsho rarely lines out to third.
“I think it’s played properly because you got the bases loaded, you got one out — the infield’s totally drawn in so you’re not in a contact situation there, right? You’ve got to at least freeze on a line drive. And if you really look at that video, Kirky’s in the perfect spot, he’s about a foot off the base, like IKF because of Varsho,” Mattingly explained. “He does pull the ball. So I’d say the one thing that we kinda missed — and I’d say myself, (John Schneider) — is that Varsho does not line out to third base. He does not hit line drives on that side of the field, really. And so you can get a little bit more. But if it was a right-hand batter, IKF’s probably right where he should be.”
Though time seems to almost freeze in Hollywood-worthy moments like that, for the players on the field and the managers in the dugout, there aren’t enough seconds to make the immutably correct decision. And unfortunately, hindsight is 20-20.
