Baseball Justice Restored

Rare sight: Giants congratulate each other after a win.

In the important Bay Area sports news of yesterday (kidding!), the Giants broke a nine-game home losing streak by defeating the Seattle Mariners 6-2 behind the pitching of Tim Lincecum and hitting of Matt Duffy.

It was an interesting game to witness, and not just because the home team won.

Giants centerfielder Angel Pagan got thrown out for arguing two called strikes in the middle of his at-bat (manager Bruce Bochy, who unfailingly supports his players, was also ejected) in the 8th inning.

Rookie Jarrett Parker was substituted for Pagan and promptly took a third strike. The scoreboard showed that poor Parker's batting average fell from .111 (1 hit out of 9) to .100 (1 for 10). It seemed to this casual baseball fan that it was pretty unfair to charge Jarrett Parker with the strikeout after one pitch, but professional statisticians must know the rules, right?

Faith in the justice of baseball was restored when a check of the box score this morning showed that Pagan, not Parker, was assigned the strikeout. Now, if they can just do something about the designated hitter...