Bautista says 'no confusion' over misplayed ball
Toronto Blue Jays star outfielder Jose Bautista says there was "no confusion" over a ball hit between him and second baseman Ryan Goins during the club's seventh-inning collapse in Game 2 of the ALCS.
With the Blue Jays and starter David Price staked to a 3-0 lead, Ben Zobrist's shallow popup dropped between Goins and Bautista for a single, and set the stage for the Kansas City Royals' improbable 6-3 comeback victory.
"It's on me," said Goins, who had shaded into right field and appeared to be calling for the catch before abruptly backing off and letting the ball drop between the two players. "Nothing can be said about it. I just didn't make the play."
(Courtesy: MLB.com)
Price would go on to allow two more singles and an RBI double during the five-run inning, though Bautista indicated to reporters after the game that the damage had already been done.
"It's disappointing," Bautista said after the Royals seized a commanding 2-0 series lead. "It's obviously a ball that should've been caught. That's what opened the door. We should be making those plays. I was running to it. Someone called me off. So I peeled off."
When pressed by reporters as to who Bautista thought was to blame, the slugger offered a cryptic answer.
"My perspective? I think there’s video. You can watch it," he said. "There was no confusion. I don’t know what you’re talking about."
A dejected Goins lamented the miscue after the game, insisting it's a play he's made hundreds of times before.
"I stuck my glove up, which is kind of the sign for, 'I got it,'" Goins said, according to MLB.com's Gregor Chisholm. "I did it probably two or three times. I thought late that I heard something, and it wasn't. I didn't go at it aggressively enough. I thought I heard, 'I got it.' It was nothing."
The Blue Jays now return to Toronto hoping to become the first team in 30 years to come back from multiple 2-0 deficits in the postseason. The last team to pull off such a feat was the Royals, who rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the 1985 ALCS to defeat the Blue Jays in seven games.