{"id":587802,"date":"2026-02-23T05:06:43","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T05:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/587802\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T05:06:43","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T05:06:43","slug":"a-glitch-in-the-matrix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/587802\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A glitch in the matrix\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want more ways to catch up on the latest in Bay Area sports? Sign up for the <\/a>Section 415 email newsletter here<\/a> and subscribe to the \u201cSection 415″ podcast <\/a>wherever you listen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. \u2014 As Giants pitcher Robbie Ray tells the story, when he walked to the dugout after a scoreless first inning Sunday afternoon at Scottsdale Stadium, teammates greeted him in congratulatory fashion.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, way to get out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWay to put up a zero.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ray shook his head and smiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I did a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the left-hander didn\u2019t do much at all, other than issue walks to his first two batters and yield a single to the next guy up. Yet he had the best seat in the house for one of the wackiest innings in Scottsdale Stadium history.<\/p>\n

Nobody knew which was more bizarre: the loud recording over the PA system calling for everyone to evacuate (which many fans obeyed but the players and umpires ignored) \u2026 or one of the goofiest triple plays in the history of the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, that was a dicey situation,\u201d manager Tony Vitello said. \u201cFor it to end the way it did, it\u2019ll be something we\u2019ll joke about all spring training long.\u201d<\/p>\n

First things first.<\/p>\n

Ray opened the game by walking Matt Shaw, who stole second, and then walked Alex Bergman. Up stepped Seiya Suzuki, who popped a single behind second baseman Luis Arr\u00e1ez. Arr\u00e1ez picked up the ball and quickly fired to first baseman Rafael Devers, who was in position to cut off a throw to the plate. But Shaw, the lead runner, stayed at third, so Devers alertly threw to shortstop Willy Adames covering second. Suzuki was out.<\/p>\n

Bedlam followed. Adames noticed two runners at third base and jogged toward both, then tagged both. Umpires called Bregman out.<\/p>\n

1 day ago<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

4 days ago<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Friday, Feb. 13<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Double play.<\/p>\n

But wait. Shaw mysteriously and aimlessly wandered off the bag, either thinking he was the one called out or the inning was over. Either way, as Jon Miller described in the broadcast booth, Shaw \u201cmade a boneheaded rookie mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adames had handed the ball to third baseman Matt Chapman, who nonchalantly followed Shaw off the bag and tagged him.<\/p>\n

Triple play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Shaw thought he was out, so I just tagged him,\u201d Chapman said. \u201cNot much more to it. Just early spring training, getting used to running the bases again, but we\u2019ll take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It turned into a quasi-clean inning for Ray, thanks to the 4-3-6-5 triple play that, in this bizarre world, began with a base hit and involved all four infielders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA glitch in the matrix\u201d is what Chapman called it.<\/p>\n

And about that announcement that kept repeating to evacuate the premises \u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAttention. Attention. An emergency has been reported in this building. Please cease operations and leave the building utilizing the nearest exit or the exit stairwell. Do not use elevators. Repeat. Do not use elevators.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ray faced Shaw and then Bregman during the announcement, and while much of the crowd of 9,408 listened to orders and quickly began to head for the exits, the game played on. The Giants\u2019 fielders went nowhere, Ray kept pitching, and Bregman remained in the box.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking up in the stands, and they\u2019re filing people out,\u201d Ray said. \u201c\u2018We\u2019re just gonna play through this?\u2019 It kind of rattled me a little bit. It\u2019s enough chaos for spring training in one game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The game resumed because the first-base umpire yelled for the players to continue playing \u2013 the crew apparently had heard from the communications folks in the press box that all was well.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The departing fans ultimately figured if the players were sticking around, they should return to their seats, so they did.<\/p>\n

What triggered the emergency warning?<\/p>\n

Someone was smoking in the bathroom.<\/p>\n

Believe it.<\/p>\n

M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce needs to redo their 1985 hit: \u201c \u2018Cause everybody knows that smokin\u2019 ain\u2019t allowed \u2026 at the ol\u2019 ballgame.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a condo guy pretty much my whole career, and when the fire alarm goes off, you just assume somebody pulled up,\u201d Vitello said.<\/p>\n

Vitello\u2019s one regret was that Ray wasn\u2019t aware it was no big deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we could go back in time, maybe I should\u2019ve done something different,\u201d said Vitello, adding bench coach Jayce Tingler \u201cwas calling people trying to see if we could get an update. For Robbie\u2019s sake, it would\u2019ve been nice if he knew it\u2019s fully OK. I think he kind of had the halfway OK.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good thing for him, I don\u2019t know if Robbie\u2019s going to have more\u00a0 adversity this year than he had in that situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Giants beat the Cubs 4-2, but the score was not the story on a day San Francisco\u2019s new-look infield got an A-plus and Chicago\u2019s baserunning and the fan lighting up in the bathroom got an F-.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Want more ways to catch up on the latest in Bay Area sports? Sign up for the Section…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,162,4,378,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342,185,1870],"class_list":{"0":"post-587802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-giants","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-giants","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-giants","13":"tag-sanfrancisco","14":"tag-sanfranciscogiants","15":"tag-sf","16":"tag-sf-giants","17":"tag-sfgiants","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-tony-vitello"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116118211837207743","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}