The Rays Tank: Giants Even The Series

The Giants defeated the Cardinals last night by a score of 7-1, but the only thing people are going to be talking about is the slide off Matt Holliday. In the first inning with two on and one out, Alan Craig hit a grounder to shortstop Brandon Crawford who flipped the ball to second basemen Marco Scutaro. Scutaro, all 5'10 185 pounds of him, stood his ground and tried to turn the double play as the 6'4, 235 pound Matt Holliday crashed into him. It wasn't so much of a slide as it was a tackle. Holliday didn't slide into the bag, he slide over it. The first part of a player's body to touch the ground during a slide is their left knee, and Holliday's hit the ground on the other side of second base.

There are clean, hard takeout slides and then there is what Holliday did. Scutaro would eventually leave the game in the sixth inning to have his hip X-rayed (they were negative). Holliday was apologetic after the game but that doesn't take away from what he did, which could very well have broken Scutaro's leg.

The Giants got the best type of revenge, though, hitting a lead off homer the following inning with Angel Pagan giving a mocking salute to the Cardinals' bench, and Holliday misplaying a Scutaro base hit to left field allowing three runs to score. I'm not a big believer in karma, but...karma.

Tonight we get to watch Justin Verlander throw another 120+ pitches, hopefully in a complete game, against the Yankees. Baseball!

Links:

-For all of you Braves fans out there, yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Sid Bream's slide.

-Deadspin is great with SEO headlines, so this one should do pretty well: Derek Jeter's Injury Tied To Steroid Use. No. Seriously.

-Non baseball, but funny nonetheless. Ivan Johnson is the most interesting player in the NBA. He shattered a backboard in practice recently. Grantland makes fun of it.