Rockies manager Schaeffer pulls Carrigg from game after he dawdles on fly ball

DENVER — Saturday night, Rockies outfielder/shortstop Cole Carrigg was enjoying the type of game that has become typical of him in an explosive rookie season, going 2-for-4 with an RBI.

But after the seventh inning of what would be a 10-7 Rockies win, manager Warren Schaeffer pulled him from the lineup — and not for a defensive substitution. It was because on his second hit of the night — an arcing fly ball to left field with runners on second and third — he lurched slowly out of the batter’s box, caught up thinking that St. Louis left fielder Joshua Baéz would make the catch.

Instead, Baéz came up short on his sliding attempt. The runners had to hold their positions and tag up, of course, but there was no reason for Carrigg not to keep motoring down the first-base line.

“It’s a simple rule that if effort hurts the team, you’re coming out of the ballgame,” manager Warren Schaeffer said.

“That fly ball was up in the air way too long. He should have been standing on second base. He knows it.”

Schaeffer’s decision came one week after he removed Carrigg from the starting lineup for two games after making an obscene gesture toward Atlanta fans in the left-center field seats in the eighth inning of an Aug. 29 contest. Schaeffer was reported to say that he would sit Carrigg for a “couple days,” but later clarified that it didn’t mean he wouldn’t use him as a substitute, and inserted Carrigg as a pinch hitter in both of the following two games, and kept him in the outfield for the final innings of the Aug. 30 game against Atlanta.

Carrigg will be back in the Rockies lineup for Sunday’s series and homestand finale, Schaeffer added.

“Listen, 99 times out of 100, Cole Carrigg is the hardest-nosed player out there,” Schaeffer said.

But on that 100th time, the Rockies’ dynamic rookie found himself on the business end of another teachable moment.

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