It’s never a good sign when even the umpires need to check the rule, which is what happened in a wild seventh inning moment during Monday’s Red Sox-Blue Jays game.
The incorrect number of outs shown on the Rogers Centre scoreboard sent the game spiraling into chaos that led to a more than 15-minute delay as the umps tried to ascertain the situation, which was an inning-ending double play that occurred because two outs were incorrectly shown on the scoreboard.
Because of the confusion caused by the stadium error, when Boston’s Ceddanne Rafaela made contact with the ball on a fly out to center field, the runners on first and third ran on contact, allowing Blue Jays outfielder Brett Bateman to fire the ball to first for the out.
Simultaneously, the runner on third base also had run on contact and crossed home plate, but he never tagged, which led to the confusion and led to crew chief Chris Guccione to have to call New York to get a ruling.
“The runner at third base did not tag and crossed home plate before the out at first was recorded,” Guccione told the crowd in Toronto after a long pause. “We are going to New York to do a rules check.”
He came back a short time later and announced to the crowd that “the run is going to score,” making it a 2-1 ballgame that the Blue Jays still led.
The Blue Jays did manage to hang onto the lead for the rest of the game to pick up the win.
“What I was told was the rule is the rule. It’s a timing play,” Jays manager John Schneider told reporters after the game. “If the run scores from third no matter what he did – tagging up or not – before the out is recorded at first, the run counts. Now if we had just thrown the ball to third instead of first, obviously a different story.”
Schneider added that Boston did not challenge the play and because his team ran off the field already, the Blue Jays weren’t able to appeal the play by throwing the ball to third base.
“We weren’t given an opportunity to appeal to third and going forward when that play happens again in the next 100 years, if it’s us, we will record the out at third,” he said.
