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Red Sox’ Alex Cora on missed strikeout: ‘I take full blame’
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- Red Sox’ Alex Cora on missed strikeout: ‘I take full blame’
HOUSTON — Home plate umpire Mark Wegner lost track of the count during a fifth-inning at-bat in the Red Sox’ 9-2 loss to the Astros on Tuesday.
It took a strikeout away from Brayan Bello and extended the inning . Bello had gotten Cam Smith to swing and miss on the first three pitches of the at-bat.
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On Wednesday, manager Alex Cora accepted responsibility for not realizing Wegner lost track of the count.
“That’s on us,” Cora said. “We have to be better on that. I take full blame of that. Yeah, the umpire missed it but there’s a system. We can actually ask for a count check but we didn’t do it.”
Wegner admitted to missing the call after Wednesday’s game, saying, “If anybody caught it, we can always go and call replay and check the count. I’ve never done that before. I’m not happy about it. Just made a mistake.”
After the second swinging strike and before the third, chaos erupted. Joey Loperfido , the runner at first, stole second base, then two throwing errors allowed Christian Walker to score from third base, making it 5-1 Houston.
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Wegner acknowledged that sequence of events must have caused him to lose track of the count. Bello checked the count after the run scored and Wegner told him it was 1-1.
“I remember in that at-bat, Bello kind of like going back and forth with him, and then he’s stepping out before the 3-2 pitch, kind of like checking where we were,” Cora said. “And I think Wonger (catcher Connor Wong ), too — everybody was confused out there. But in the dugout, we weren’t confused. We missed it."
After the missed strikeout call, Bello eventually walked Smith on nine pitches and Cora removed him from the game.
Smith said he personally didn’t realize the count was off, but the Astros dugout did.
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“We’ve just gotta be better,” Cora said. “No excuses for the coaching staff. We missed it. We have to be on top of that.”
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