{"id":338183,"date":"2025-12-09T23:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/338183\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T23:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:31:07","slug":"schneider-kiner-falefa-shouldnt-be-blamed-for-game-7-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/338183\/","title":{"rendered":"Schneider: Kiner-Falefa shouldn’t be blamed for Game 7 loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. — Having watched the play thousands of times, Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> manager John Schneider doesn’t want Isiah Kiner-Falefa<\/a> to be criticized for getting thrown out at the plate in the ninth inning in Game 7 of the World Series – falling an inch short of scoring a championship-winning run.<\/p>\n

“I feel so bad for Izzy for getting all the blame,” Schneider said Tuesday at the winter meetings. “So, could we have done a better job of getting Izzy another step or two down? Yeah, for sure.”<\/p>\n

After Miguel Rojas<\/a> hit a tying homer for the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> in the top half, Bo Bichette<\/a> singled with one out in the bottom half off Blake Snell<\/a> and Kiner-Falefa entered as a pinch runner. Addison Barger<\/a> walked, and Alejandro Kirk<\/a> was hit by a pitch from Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a>, loading the bases.<\/p>\n

Kiner-Falefa took an unusual 7.8-foot lead at the behest of third base coach Carlos Febles, the fourth-shortest primary lead by a runner off third during the World Series, according to MLB Statcast. Kiner-Falefa’s 8.9-foot secondary lead when the pitcher released the ball was the eighth-shortest during the Series.<\/p>\n

With the Dodgers playing the infield in, Daulton Varsho<\/a> hit a 76.9 mph two-hopper to Rojas. The second baseman gloved the ball, stumbled a bit and regained his balance, then threw to catcher Will Smith<\/a>, who lifted his right foot off the plate as he caught the ball and then pushed his spike back down.<\/p>\n

Plate umpire Jordan Baker signaled out, deciding Smith touched the plate just ahead of the left foot of the sliding Kiner-Falefa.<\/p>\n

“I’ve seen that video 3,000 times, and in 1,500 of them it looks like Will’s off the plate. In the other half, it looks like he’s on,” Schneider said.<\/p>\n

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Baker’s call was upheld about 70 seconds later after a video review.<\/p>\n

“There’s been video of Carlos kind of telling him where to go,” Schneider said, 5 1\/2 weeks after the Dodgers’ 5-4, 11-inning win closed out their second straight title. “What’s not talked about I think enough is the fact that Will Smith likes to back-pick to third with left-handed hitters up. It’s something we talked about before the Series, something that Carlos reminded Izzy of.”<\/p>\n

“So, it’s not runner at third going on contact, selling out, if it’s a line drive, you’re OK with it,” Schneider said. “It’s bases loaded. A, you don’t want to get back-picked. B, you don’t want to get doubled up on a line drive. People have said, yeah, what are the odds that Varsh is going to line out to third? Fairly low, right? That’s just where he doesn’t hit the ball.”<\/p>\n

He didn’t fault IFK’s slide.<\/p>\n

“I don’t really think that he could have done much more,” the manager explained. “People have said could he have run through the run through the plate? Could he have slid headfirst? … In my head, with the way Varsh hit it, I thought one of three things was going to happen. I thought it was going to be fielded and Rojas falls backwards. Game over. Fielded, falls, throws a worm-burner to the mound. Game over. Or field, throw, throw wide of Will Smith. Game over.”<\/p>\n

Ernie Clement<\/a> followed with a 100.7 mph drive that center fielder Andy Pages<\/a> snagged with a leaping backhand grab on the warning track as he knocked over left fielder Kike Hernandez.<\/p>\n

“Every time I kind of go down a rabbit hole, I find myself in a new rabbit hole,” Schneider said. “I haven’t watched everything. On a regular-season game, game over, next day or that night, boom, you’re checking tape, you’re running back — I haven’t done that yet and I don’t know when I will. It’ll probably involve a beer or two when the kids are asleep and I can throw some stuff against the wall. But, we’ll see. I’m starting to appreciate it from a fan’s standpoint.”<\/p>\n

Schneider joked about finishing second to Cleveland’s Stephen Vogt<\/a> for AL Manager of the Year — voting takes place before the postseason.<\/p>\n

“It’s such a weird award,” he said. “I was kind of looking back at previous winners. These guys all got fired soon after there.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. — Having watched the play thousands of times, Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider doesn’t want…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-338183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}