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For those who didn't see the Twins' 10-6 loss to the Mariners Tuesday night, here's all you need to know to catch up for this particular piece: In the bottom of the eighth inning, on a dribbler to the right side of the diamond, Austin Martin legged out an infield single. In the process, he slid headfirst, trying to avoid both a potential tag and a potential collision with Mariners pitcher Taylor Saucedo, but (in one of those cruel twists that fate sometimes dispenses, on diamonds and elsewhere) he ended up causing an injury, instead. Martin slid into Saucedo, who badly injured his knee and crumpled to the ground.
Max Kepler was at third base, having scampered there from his starting station at second when the ball went to the right side. The score was 6-5 Mariners, at the time, and as Saucedo fell and the ball rolled away, Kepler briefly hesitated, then took off for home plate. He scored the tying run, uncontested.
The Twins tie the game after a scary situation in the 8th #MNTwins | #MLB pic.twitter.com/dv6pr0umzE
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) May 8, 2024
After the game, Kepler was rueful, but not quite contrite about that decision. Philosophically, in his mind, it was his duty to score. The ball was live, and a coach was there, telling him to run.
Max Kepler knew he had to go on the play where Seattle pitcher Tayler Saucedo was injured, but he didn't feel great about it. #MNTwins pic.twitter.com/cPb5ApwZzv
— DanHayesMLB (@DanHayesMLB) May 8, 2024
As far as it goes, that's a reasonable stance. It's an especially tough call late in a close game. Kepler's run was important, and in this day and age, we (regrettably) have to consider the implications for the perceived integrity of the contest if a player doesn't seize every opportunity to score, given the way the league facilitates and even invites gambling on its product. Kepler's wiring, and that of Tommy Watkins, told him scoring there was non-optional.
I want to make something clear, though: he did have a choice. In that moment, even though it was impossible to know whether Saucedo's injury will be career-altering and no reason to think it will be life-altering, he could have stopped and let Saucedo be more important than the tying run. We can, and I think we should, make other people more important than the vehicles through which we interact with them, like sports or business transactions or parties or city buses. It's not Martin's fault that Saucedo got hurt, and Kepler is more right than he is wrong about what the majority of people inside Target Field Tuesday night expected of him once Saucedo went down. I just think we should change that.
In our society, the broad assumption is that other people's misfortune is (if not their own fault) their own problem. In many, many instances throughout our daily lives, we instinctively reject the notion that those misfortunes should be allowed to inconvenience us--partially because we fear (with some sound basis) that no one would allow our misfortune to inconvenience them, were the roles reversed. Sports are an especially (even unavoidably) dog-eat-dog world. They're partially about finding out who wants it more, and that makes it especially hard to prioritize people over runs and points and wins in moments like that one. Sports aren't as valuable or engaging if we permit the possibility that anything else matters more than winning.
It does, though. In that moment, Kepler could have stayed at third. He didn't do anything wrong, by our current norms and expectations. Nonetheless, I think he missed an opportunity to do something truly right--or, maybe, righteous. He'd have been at third with one out, anyway. He might well have still come around to score, although we can't come anywhere near assuming he would have. It doesn't matter. I want to call this out now, so that next time a similar situation arises, we can come a little bit closer to expecting better of people. Eventually, we can play a version of sports in which everyone wants to win, and everyone knows it, but everyone also understands when someone's pain (or triumph) transcends the outcome of a given game or inning. I don't think we're all that close to that, yet, but we should try to get there.
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