Blue Jays’ Isiah Kiner-Falefa Explains Thinking Behind Controversial Baserunning Decision
For Toronto Blue Jays fans, the wounds are still fresh from Saturday night’s World Series Game 7 loss. Understandably, many Jays fans are still analyzing everything that went wrong for Toronto in the game, and chief among the plays under scrutiny is Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s baserunning in the ninth inning, specifically when IKF was thrown out at home (with less than a millisecond to spare!) on a force out with the bases loaded.
Had Kiner-Falefa scored, the World Series would have ended then and there in Toronto’s favor. Despite Dodgers second baseman Miguel Rojas stumbling slightly upon fielding a grounder, Rojas was still able to throw out Kiner-Falefa at home, and many fans are pointing to IKF’s lack of a sufficient secondary lead off of third base as a huge mistake.
Not everyone agrees with the premise that Kiner-Falefa was in the wrong, by the way. Former MLB player Whit Merrifield has been among the most articulate and evidence-backed defenders of IKF’s baserunning over the past 48 hours.
Kiner-Falefa himself has since spoken publicly about the play.
“They told us to stay close to the base,” he said. “They don’t want us to get doubled off in that situation with a hard line drive. Varsho hits the ball really, really hard. (Muncy’s) right there, I’m waiting for a backpack from Will Smith in that situation. I can’t get doubled off right there so it’s almost like bases loaded. They wanted a smaller lead and a smaller secondary, so that’s what I did.”
“It was obviously a tough play. They got it done. The lead is small. In that situation, you can’t get doubled off. I got the best secondary I could from that spot and it didn’t work out.”
With IKF saying he was just following instructions from the Blue Jays’ coaching staff, and with Merrifield writing that, “30 other clubs would’ve been telling IKF the exact same thing”, it’s worth mentioning that just a couple of innings prior, Max Muncy caught a vicious line drive from a left-handed batter (Andrés Giménez) that pretty much demonstrated the type of play that could have allowed Muncy to double off a runner at third taking too generous of a lead.
Some critics have stated that IKF’s lead off of third base in the ninth should have been taking into account that the lefty at the plate, Daulton Varsho, was more likely to pull the ball (which is, indeed, what happened), but the Giménez liner presents an easily accessible counterpoint.