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I’m With the Boomers: Edmundo Sosa Has Gotta Hustle Out of the Box
By Matt Schultz
Published:
The Phillies lost to the Astros 6-5 on Tuesday night, and things could’ve gone differently if Edmundo Sosa hadn’t pretty much blown it with his baserunning:
Phillies down 6-4 in the ninth, no outs, Bryson Stott on first. Sosa drives a high-arching ball to right-center field that takes a favorable bounce off the wall, scoring Stott and sending Daulton Varsho chasing down the ball for a good five seconds.
This is a triple. With a bounce off the wall like that, this has to be a triple. But when the camera cuts to Sosa, he’s only standing on second base. How the hell is that possible?
This view shows how – Sosa clearly thought the ball was out of the park and watched it without running:
And for as bad as this baserunning blunder was on its own, it’s made worse by what happened next: J. T. Realmuto and Derek Hill both flied out on balls hit deep enough for Sosa to score on if he was on third.
But he wasn’t on third. He was on second. He eventually got to third with two outs, but it didn’t end up mattering. Josh Hader retired Kyle Scwarber and that was the ballgame.
Look, it brings me no joy to side with the boomers on this one. I think of myself as a young and cool type of guy. I watch YouTube Shorts. I know about Fortnite. It’s shooting stuff with dances mixed in. Cartoon characters are in there. Believe you can play as Cleveland from Family Guy. I get it…
And I’m not out here saying every player needs to book it out of the box every time he gets contact. I’m no stickler. If it’s a hard-hit groundout and there’s pretty much no shot of beating out the throw, for example, I say take it easy. Let’s not pull a hamstring. Again, I get it. I am an understanding and chill type of guy…
But this Sosa one is different. He watched the ball for so, so long. That sucked. Not only was it very embarrassing for Sosa (which, make no mistake, it was; a bench player acting like prime Barry Bonds rocketing a 600-foot homer and then seeing it stay in the park is humiliating), it may have cost the Phillies the game. Trying to look cool and failing is bad enough. Trying to look cool, failing, and then costing your team a W is about as bad as it gets — especially in September, in the middle of a playoff race.
Shame on you, Sosa, for making me sound like a boomer guy. Please do not do this to me again.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com