Daily Madden: Hard Baseball Or Dirty Play?
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - It's unclear whether Marco Scutaro will play in Game 3 of the NLCS in St. Louis Wednesday. The Giants second baseman was injured after Cardinals outfielder Matt Holliday aggressively collided with Scutaro behind the base.
A person with knowledge of the injury told the Associated Press that Giants the second baseman strained his left hip during the play. The person spoke on condition of anonymity Tuesday because the team hadn't made an announcement on Scutaro's condition. Scutaro flew with the Giants to St. Louis.
"It's a competitive situation, it's breaking up the double play," John Madden told the KCBS morning crew. "Do you have to do it that way is probably the question... If it's your player it's an aggressive play to break up a double play. If it's against your team, it's a dirty play."
The Giants won the game 7-1 to tie the series at 1-1.
"I do know that you can't let something like that take the focus off what you're really trying to do," the former coach said. "If you think, 'we're going to get them, we're going to do this, we're going to do that,' that's not your goal. I mean your goal is to win."
Scutaro went down in the first inning of the Giants' 7-1 win, then hit a two-run single in the fourth before coming out of the game after the fifth inning.
Manager Bruce Bochy called it "an illegal slide."
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Also Monday, down 24-0 at the half, quarterback Peyton Manning led the Denver Broncos to a 35-24 victory over the Chargers in San Diego Monday night. "If you want to define 'elite quarterback' just put the name Peyton Manning there," Madden said.
"How many quarterbacks in the NFL do you think can come from behind in a half (of a game) down 24-0 and still believe that they can do it and have the team believe they can do it? That to me is the definition of an elite quarterback, a guy that can play uphill on the road and win the game. Now having said that, he did have a little help from (Chargers quarterback) Philip Rivers."
Rivers lost two fumbles and threw four interceptions, three in the fourth quarter. (7:05)
Listen to the John Madden segment live weekday mornings at 8:15 on KCBS All News 740 AM/106.9 FM. And catch John's extra report at 9:15 a.m. Mondays and Fridays during the NFL season.
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