When the first excuse doesn’t succeed, try, try again. Baseball playoffs and the Virginia gubernatorial race. Seemingly unrelated, right? Well, yes. However, both are quite serious enterprises which demand a great deal of attention and money in October. And both have a couple potential goats who are revising their explanations after their first attempts largely failed.

In the world of the Nation’s Pasttime, umpire Doug Eddings is backpedaling from his no fault position on his call in Wednesday night’s Angels-White Sox game. Following the game Wednesday, Eddings was defensive in the interview room. Now, ESPN reports that Eddings wishes that he had “been more emphatic” in calling the third strike “no catch.” No apology, really. And unlikely to quiet the hordes of Angels fans. Okay, they’re probably not hordes, but MLB had a security escort for him at the airport in Southern California.

Also unlikely to quiet the hordes is Tim Kaine’s non-defense defense on the death penalty. The Kilgore campaign ran ads this week featuring the relatives of murdered Virginians and emphasizing his activism (the newspapers and Kaine call it “personal opposition” — hogwash, if the guy’s called for a moratorium in the political realm) against the death penalty. In the case of one ad, Stanley Rosenbluth takes issue with Tim Kaine’s defense of his son and daughter-in-law’s killer. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Tim Kaine responded with “personal, faith-based opposition.”

Now, Kaine’s changing his story and claiming that he “spent less than an hour working on the case.” As Commonwealth’s Attorney Chad Dotson details, by the rules of the Fourth Circuit, if your name’s on the brief, you represent that client. On Tuesday, Kaine was selling his work as principled and faith-based. When that didn’t wash, it became something in which he was barely involved.

Eddings is one step closer to non-goat. Kaine has made his situation worse.