LOS ANGELES -Gerry Davis will work the World Series for the sixth time, tying Joe West for the most times among active umpires.
Davis will be crew chief for the third time, the commissioner's office said Monday. A 34-year big league veteran, Davis has worked a record 136 postseason games. He also umpired in the World Series in 1996, 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2012.
Phil Cuzzi will be behind the plate for Tuesday night's opener between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros. Paul Nauert will be at first, Davis at second, Laz Diaz at third, Bill Miller in left and Dan Iassogna in right.
Mark Wegner will be the replay umpire in New York for the first two games, then move to left field for Game 3 in Houston. Cuzzi replaces him as replay umpire for the remaining games.
Tripp Gibson, who worked the American League wild-card game, will be replay assistant for the World Series.
After coming up short, Cubs face a winter's worth of changes
CHICAGO -- The first domino of the Chicago Cubs’ offseason has fallen, as the team won’t exercise its 2018 option on pitching coach Chris Bosio after he's been on the job six years, according to a source familiar with the situation. The Cubs have not commented on the move, but team president Theo Epstein made one thing clear about his pitching staff this past season.
“The biggest factor is just the walks,” Epstein said in a Friday afternoon news conference. “We were 30th out of 30 in unintentional walk rate. The only team over 10 percent [walk rate]. That’s not acceptable. None of us feel good about that.”
The struggle with command carried over to the postseason, when the Cubs walked a whopping 53 batters in 10 games. But let’s be clear: It’s highly doubtful that one statistic alone has the Cubs moving on from Bosio. When it comes to coaches, so much of what they do goes on behind the scenes and involves one-on-one work with pitchers. When the work leads to a World Series title, you don’t question it. When a team falls short, everything can be scrutinized. Epstein forecast the departure in discussing what went wrong with his pitchers.
“Partly a player personnel thing,” he said. “It goes beyond that because if you look at it, and we have, virtually every reliever that we had walked more guys this year on a rate basis then they did on average through their career. It was common.”
Bosio is also a tell-it-like-it-is guy -- to both his bosses and his players. That can be a good trait, but perhaps the team believes another voice is needed to lead some younger pitchers who -- at least on the surface -- were advancing at a slower pace. And of course, that walk rate could not have helped Bosio’s cause.