My friend, your job as a team is to score runs. If you wait until the last inning to do anything, it is not the fault of the umpire. I don't care what your situation is, if you sit on your duff and don't do your job as a team, don't come running to me if I blow 1 call! So JW, I guess your response to mine is what is silly.

You're right. Umpires should never be blamed for anything-EVER.

1 ump blown call...vs atleast 27 at bats with opportunities to put runs on the board... YOU tell me which looks like it would have a greater effect on the outcome of the game??

The valid parts of the rest of your post notwithstanding, that is not what happened. Just watch the imedded video in APG's post. Freeze it at 3 seconds and you can see Nelson clearly in B. At 7 seconds he is directly between the mound and the bag on the grass at the cutout, about one step on the first base side of second--you can see space between the bag and the left side of his body. All he had to do was get set right where he was at the time of the throw and he would probably would have got the call right. Instead, he ran directly toward the bag in an attempt to get closer and made the call on the move, too close to the play.

I agree with this assessment. I noticed that he opened up toward the ball, and actually may have taken a step or two toward first. I don't know why, if he in fact was moving toward first, he did that. Perhaps that was why it looked like he was in a dead sprint to try to catch up with the play?

That's just not true. A foul ball called fair for a two-run HR in the bottom of the 1st of a V-1, H-0 game leaves the visitors 24 outs to overcome the error. That same call in the bottom of the 9th puts an L on the board. You can rationalize all you want about the things the visitors "should have done" in their nine at-bats preceding the last-inning mistake, but the timing of errors matters a great deal in terms of importance.

I always feel worse ringing a guy up on a pitch out of the zone than I do if it's a lousy call for strike one.

The question isn't which have a greater effect. These are the best players in the world, often evenly matched. The difference between a runner in scoring position and no runner in scoring position is a large one.

That said, what's the difference? How one looks at an umpire error in judgment shouldn't be impacted by the situation. It's no better or worse. But excusing it based on whether it affected the outcome is answering the wrong question.

And interestingly, they just missed a tag in game 2 of the NLCS. Looked like good positioning. Why after a missed call can there not just be an inning ending double play? Naturally, the Giants are having a huge inning.

No homers, no runs. Two 2 runs dingers, and solo shot last night. You would think the highest paid club by far in baseball would play harder than that. The highest paid player has to sit the bench on this team.