Kyle's Excellent Adventure

I got a couple of e-mails regarding Kyle Farnsworth's at-bat, in which he reached base only to be thrown out at second.

As I noted yesterday, the wire-service box scores didn't even indicate that the at-bat had been completed; the pitch-by-pitch left off at a 3-2 count and the box scores said that Kyle had walked, which was wrong.

I wrote that he had reached on Roberto Hernandez' throwing error and then was thrown out 8-6, but that's not quite right. The error actually allowed Michael Barrett, who had been on second, to reach third, and then the putout, which was actually 8-4 (throw taken by 2B Placido Polanco), retired Farnsworth.

MLB.com's play-by-play says:

Kyle Farnsworth reaches on a fielder's choice out, center fielder Ricky Ledee to second baseman Placido Polanco. Kyle Farnsworth out at 2nd. Michael Barrett advances to 3rd, on throwing error by pitcher Roberto Hernandez.

This isn't precisely how it happened; the putout at 2B couldn't have been made the way it was, except that Hernandez had thrown the ball into CF first. It's simply a quirk in the scoring rules.

In any case, the correct scoring is:

Fielder's choice, 8-4 putout, E-1 allowing Barrett to advance.

Thanks to Steve and Lance for pointing this out to me.

And keep Kyle on the mound, not in the batter's box!