ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- This was not, as they say in tennis, an unforced error.
Left to his own devices Tuesday night, Tampa Bay rookie second baseman Ryan Brett, making his first major-league start, surely would have made a successful relay throw to first base, completing what would have been an inning-ending double play begun by Rays pitcher Chris Archer.
That throw becomes exponentially more difficult, however, when Boston's Mookie Betts has climbed inside your uniform. Betts, aboard on first after a walk, barreled into Brett, who took a step back as Betts approached and then was upended by the Sox base-runner. That caused his throw to bounce in front of first baseman Logan Forsythe and then past him.
The batter, Dustin Pedroia, was safe, and the runner on second, Ryan Hanigan, scored the game's only run in a 1-0 win over the Rays in Tropicana Field.
Off the bat, it looked like a certain double play. Pedroia hit the ball sharply, and Archer snatched it out of the air with his glove.
"I didn't think I was going to get that close to [Brett], then when I was sort of getting on him, I'm thinking, ‘I can get him.' That pretty much ends up what I did."
Archer made a nice play on the ball, but may have taken just one beat extra to deliver the ball to Brett, which left him in the line of Betts's fire. The Sox have talked often, he said, about making sure they take advantage of such opportunities.
"Nothing dirty," Betts said."I think he [Archer] may have taken just a little extra time. That's OK with me."
Nothing dirty indeed. It was textbook. Losing pitcher Archer acknowledged as much. "I watched it," he said, "and the dude [Betts] did a great job of taking Brett out. Brett did everything he could. He tried to get it over there but Mookie did a great job of taking him out."
And on Tuesday night, that made the difference between winning and losing.
