Major league ballplayers these days are so insanely talented and athletic that they make the game look easy. Much easier than it really is. Tough plays look routine, and plays that used to go into highlight reels are now happening multiple times a game.
If you want a good reminder of just how incredibly hard this sport is, go watch a minor league game. Any level works, though the lower down you go, the easier it is to pick out the guys with the ability to one day play at the highest level. It’s true you never know with prospects, but you can spot studs like Kris Bryant and Francisco Lindor a mile away in the minors.
Here’s a pretty great example of how sloppy baseball can be at the minor league level. The Montgomery Biscuits (Rays) beat the Biloxi Shuckers (Brewers) of the Double-A Southern League on Monday night (MON 13, BIL 6), and check out the pitching lines on Biloxi’s pitchers:
Twelve unearned runs! Starter Angel Ventura was charged with 11 unearned runs (11!) in two innings of work. Goodness. I think it’s silly home runs can go into the books as unearned runs, but the rules are the rules.
That all happened because Biloxi’s defenders committed nine errors in the game, including six with Ventura on the mound. At one point in the first inning the Shuckers committed errors on four consecutive plays. Here’s the play-by-play:
An error by the shortstop, an error by the pitcher, an error by the third baseman, and an error by the catcher, all on consecutive plays. Second baseman Angel Ortega would go on to commit two errors later in the game, so nearly Biloxi’s entire infield got in the act. First baseman Dustin DeMuth was the only infielder who failed to commit an error.
Major league players make mistakes too. For example, this happened Monday:
Today the Nationals became the first team since the Cleveland Indians on 5/7/1992 to have all 4 infielders commit an error and win a game
— Anthony Masterson (@MasterTones) April 11, 2017
They just don’t mistakes nearly as often as the kids still learning the game in the minors.
The MLB record for errors in a game by a single team is 12, which has happened twice and not since 1903. The last MLB team to commit as many as six errors in a game was the Tigers, who did it on June 25, 2013.
