Mauricio Dubon's untimely mistake for Braves reminds SF Giants why they let him go

While SF Giants fans became Atlanta Braves fans during the NLDS as Atlanta faced off against the Los Angeles Dodgers, unfortunately the Braves were not able to thwart the Dodgers as LA took Game 4 on Wednesday night to win the series and will be moving on to face the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLCS.

The Braves have several former Giants on their team and while Tyler Mahle pitched really well in Game 4, Mike Yastrzemski remained cold and Mauricio Dubon made a mistake that changed the complexion of the game.

Dubon was the team’s starting shortstop and he allowed the only run to score while Mahle was on the mound by dropping a fairly routine pop up into shallow left field in the second inning which allowed a run to score.

It was the kind of mistake that you really can’t make going up against a team as good as the Dodgers and while it would be unfair to put all the blame on Dubon, one can’t help but be reminded of some of the mistakes he used to make when he was with San Francisco.

Typically most of the mental miscues Dubon would make came on the bases. He’d just make very poor decisions and would cost the team outs with those mistakes. 

The Giants didn’t trade him away only because of that, though. A big part of it and to do with the fact that the team faced a roster crunch and both he and outfielder Steven Duggar were on the cutting room floor since they were both seen as fairly solid defensively but neither had hit all that well for the Giants. They were also out of minor league options so the writing was on the wall.

Mauricio Dubon is a good player despite costly error

To Dubon’s credit, after being traded to the Houston Astros he turned himself into a really solid big league player. He won two Gold Glove Awards in Houston and is incredibly versatile, capable of playing pretty much anywhere on the diamond while also putting up respectable offensive numbers.

This season with Atlanta he had his best season at the plate yet, hitting .276/.321/.399 with 12 home runs and 73 runs batted in. That kind of year combined with his usually solid defense makes him a valuable player.

It’s unfortunate that he made such a key mistake on a big stage but that shouldn’t overshadow the solid player he’s become. It would’ve been cool to see the Braves take down the Dodgers but it just wasn’t meant to be and now we are staring at the reality of a Dodgers three-peat which is probably the most likely outcome at this point.

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