Following an hour-plus rain delay, fans at Fenway Park were immediately treated to one of the wildest double plays in recent memory during Tuesday’s Boston Red Sox matchup against the Atlanta Braves.
In the top of the first inning, Atlanta loaded the bases with one out before an apparent line-out by Marcel Ozuna sent the game into chaos.
While the baseball appeared to short hop Red Sox second baseman, Christian Arroyo, the infield umpire ruled the play a catch. Arroyo failed to record the force-out at second before haphazardly tossing the ball wildly into foul territory, allowing Austin Riley to score from third. Or so the Braves thought.
Following a brief discussion, Red Sox pitcher John Schreiber tossed the ball to third for the final out of the inning. Evidently, umpires ruled that Riley didn’t tag up from third, but it’s unclear whether he was aware the play was ruled a catch or not. Either way, the Braves chose not to challenge the ruling and play went on.
Any way you slice it umpires goofed on this play, but since it happened early in the first, the Braves wisely chose to hold on to their challenge. But, in reality, it seems Arroyo didn’t come up with the ball before it hit the infield dirt, meaning the Braves should’ve been credited a run on the play and zero outs.
Amid a season with new pace-of-play rules, umpires are seemingly under more scrutiny than ever. And while most of the venom has been directed at home plate umpires, plays like Tuesday’s give already fed-up fans another reason to call for change.
Replay challenges are a good step toward making sure plays end with the correct result, but managers are handcuffed, having only one at their disposal, which they’ll lose if it fails.
There’s seemingly a need to give over control of balls and strikes to our robot overlords, but whether or not MLB will make future tweaks to challenge rules and others as well remains to be seen.