Tigers vs Injuns 5-1-09 Laz Diaz? no-call

[mbyron]

Originally Posted by jkumpire

Being a Tribe fan, and watching their bullpen go off like a Molotov Cocktail every night, I figured I would see another firebomb go off in Detroit. Lo and behold, I did. I was rained out again yesterday (for like the 290th time this season), so I saw the play and the game. Laz Diaz mostly handled the play right.

1. F3 Martinez had the ball and lost it as he was tagging the BR. NO OBS here.
2. BR jumped over and around the tag and tumbled to the ground, never hitting the base.
3. F1 Pavano got the ball, flipped it to F3 who touched the bag. All the while the coach is hustling the BR back to the bag, and he gets there safely.
4. Time was called, and there was the long-term discussion between the manager and Diaz and the crew chief.
5. The point is that the once the BR flipped over the bag, he was considered to have reached the bag for purposes of the play and had to be tagged to be called out. He was never tagged.

The only thing I did not see Diaz do is signal safe, or no tag, during the play, but he may well have been out of camera range when he made his signal. He did not signal safe when the BR touched 1B again.

After the play, the Indians' field staff had a meeting in the dugout where Eric Wedge explained the call to them. They probably had never seen this type of call before.

I feel your pain.

Here is the video of this play (first clip). I agree that there's no obstruction or interference on this play: ball, fielder, and batter-runner all happen to arrive at the same place at the same time, and the ball pops out.

The BR missed the base, and crawled back to tag it. The Indians played on as if tagging the bag were sufficient; the umpire ruled along the lines of J/R's "relaxed/unrelaxed" action.

For those who don't know that ruling: according to J/R, the BR has acquired the base when he passes it, even if he doesn't touch it. The missed-base appeal will then be ruled on depending on what the runner does:
1. if he is scrambling back to the base (as in this play) action is "unrelaxed," and the RUNNER must be tagged.
2. if he is not trying to get back to the base (wandering around down the baseline), then action is "relaxed," and either the runner or the base may be tagged.
In the OP, the only explanation for not calling the BR out is that Laz Diaz is applying this interpretation: the fielder clearly had the ball and tagged the base before the BR got his hand on it.

This interpretation is somewhat controversial, since the black letter text of 7.10(b) permits tagging either the runner or the base ("Any runner shall be called out, on appeal, when ... (b) With the ball in play, while advancing or returning to a base, he fails to touch each base in order before he, or a missed base, is tagged.") I had heard that pro enforcement of this rule had dispensed with the J/R interpretation.

I guess Laz Diaz thinks otherwise. And I'll add, just for JK: another controversial play happens with the Indians on the field and — wait for it — goes against them.