It’s hard to know where exactly you should point the finger when a guy ties a record by stealing six bases in a game. Do you point it at Carl Crawford, saying he was just feeling it and on fire? Do you point it at the pitchers for being too slow in their delivery to home plate? Do you blame it on Jason Varitek because Crawford stole bases on three different pitchers but only one catcher? Terry Francona says you need to give credit to Crawford: “We had (Brad) Penny at 1.28 (seconds to the plate), and Jason at 1.9 (seconds on his release and throw). We can’t go faster than that. (Crawford) outran it. At the moment, to throw him out, you about have to be perfect.” Varitek had a shot to throw out Crawford in the first but made an errant throw. He’s now 3 of 29 on the season. Yikes. So what did captain bitter, Brad Penny, have to say after the game? Just what you’d expect (talking specifically about Crawford’s steal of third in the 5th):
Who cares you know, they’re two outs — why even steal there? We’re not holding him on — we’re giving him the bag. If you steal second like that it’s not considered a stolen base.
Penny sort of does have a point there and maybe Crawford should have only been given credit for five instead of six stolen bases. Still, by focusing on that instead of simply complimenting Crawford for the good game, Penny proved himself to be a jerk like usual. Can’t imagine that 7.61 ERA has anything to do with his attitude. In case you haven’t seen the Crawford steals, here they are:
