[Steven Tyler]

I saw this one in an A's/Rangers game last week.

Situation: R3 only and pitcher in the set position on the rubber. LHB, so F5 is playing a good distance from the bag. Ian Kinsler (R3) gets a good lead and starts like he is going to take off for home. Gio Gonzalez (F1) steps back off the rubber and makes what is very wild throw towards home that F2 doesn't even have a chance to catch. I'm sure he was trying to throw the ball so that F2 would have a chance on a play at the plate. Yep you guessed it, a balk was called by U1, our very own "Balk A Day" Bob Davidson. My guess was that he would have called the balk for simulating a pitch.

However, it looked to me as if Gonzalez just stepped off and was making what would have been a quick normal throw to retire a runner, abliet wildly. Just because Kinsler retreated back to 3B, I don't see any issue why a balk was called.

Did "Balk A Day" get it wrong, or am I missing something here? If the pitcher disengages the rubber first, can't he just throw it anywhere? It didn't really matter since Kinsler would have scored on the wild throw anyway.