Not intending to weaken the stance by the agreement of a Coach, but I find myself squarely in the camp of mcrowder, socalblue, & johnnyg that this was a "blown" call - and that the BI call is insupportable under the rules, custom & practice, and official and authoritative opinions. This was clearly an instance of Catcher's Interference.
Greene had his left foot firmly planted in the left-hand batter's box at the time of contact and his mitt was well in front of the tip of home plate.
From the video, it looks like Barmes is tracking the pitch the entire way and likely would have made contact with it had Greene's mitt not got in the way. Both of his feet were (legally) on the ground in his batter's box at the time of contact.
I'm guessing Iassogna was "surprised" that Barmes offered at the pitchout and assumed he MUST have been out of the box when his bat hit the catcher's mitt.
I've (re)read J/R, the JEA, and the MLBUM on the subject and I can't for the life of me figure out what UMP25 could be referring to when he references J/R support for the BI ruling. It's not there.
JM
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