Matt Holliday has become a hot topic of discussion during the NLCS after his take-out slide of Giants shortstop Marco Scutaro in Game 2 on Monday while breaking up a double-play. While he remained in the base path, the slide was certainly very late and began well after Holliday reached the bag. Scutaro suffered a strained hip on the play and is battling a sore right knee, so it is unclear whether or not he’ll be able to play in Game 3.
Though Holliday has apologized and said he in no way intended to hurt Scutaro, there has naturally been speculation that San Francisco will retaliate on Wednesday night. When asked if he will plunk Holliday, Giants starting pitching Matt Cain didn’t exactly give a firm denial.
“You’ve got to go out there and pitch your game,” Cain said according to FOX Sports. “If something gets away from me inside, that’s kind of part of the game. You can’t have a fear of doing that.”
Typically in a game of this magnitude, players move on quickly. Intentionally hitting a batter means putting a player on base during the most important game of the year to date, and I doubt Bruce Bochy wants his pitchers doing that.
“What’s on our mind is to go out and play our best ball,” Bochy said Tuesday night. “That’s over. You have to move on.”
Holliday went on to misplay this ball later on in Game 2. Coincidentally enough, the ball came off Scutaro’s bat. Does that make things even? I guess we’ll find out during Game 3.
