Pirates/Braves ending

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

Personally, I don't care about this play at all, with the exception that eliminating the expected call has finally reached this level -- where a MLB umpire is willing to make a "best guess" on a call where he got straight lined a bit rather than take all the pieces of evidence in front of him and realize that the ball beat the runner by a mile and missing an actual tag here is 10000000000x worse than calling R3 out on a swipe tag that *might* have missed.

How many of us would've given a quick little fist pump on our field and gone on to the next inning and not thought twice about it?

I do not totally disagree with you, but we do not have video replay like they do. No one could dispute that call realistically because if there was a tag or miss, that took place with less than an inch. But when have the scrutiny those guys have, the expected call can get you in trouble. And how much the throw beat him is really irrelevant anyway. It is about the tag or not. We have seen many throws beat runners only to see better evidence than this that they missed the tag. I think this umpire was probably thinking he did not want to end the game on an "expected call."

Peace

[Rich]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

I do not totally disagree with you, but we do not have video replay like they do. No one could dispute that call realistically because if there was a tag or miss, that took place with less than an inch. But when have the scrutiny those guys have, the expected call can get you in trouble. And how much the throw beat him is really irrelevant anyway. It is about the tag or not. We have seen many throws beat runners only to see better evidence than this that they missed the tag. I think this umpire was probably thinking he did not want to end the game on an "expected call."

Peace

He wouldn't have ended the game -- that's the point -- it would've gone on to the 20th inning. Instead....

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

He wouldn't have ended the game -- that's the point -- it would've gone on to the 20th inning. Instead....

I do not think at the time he is worried about that fact the game ended. We have to be able to make the tough call even if that call appears wrong at the time to others.

Peace

[prosec34]

Shouldn't the ump have positioned himself more towards the third-base line extended? I don't bother with it at the high school level b/c there's not that many sweep tags, but in MLB that happens a lot.

Personally, I'd have called him out. Unless I'm fairly convinced the tag whiffed the runner, I'll give the fielder the benefit of the doubt. I don't see how this ump could've ruled that there definitely wasn't a tag in real time.

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by prosec34

Shouldn't the ump have positioned himself more towards the third-base line extended? I don't bother with it at the high school level b/c there's not that many sweep tags, but in MLB that happens a lot.

Personally, I'd have called him out. Unless I'm fairly convinced the tag whiffed the runner, I'll give the fielder the benefit of the doubt. I don't see how this ump could've ruled that there definitely wasn't a tag in real time.

As it turned out, yes.

Maybe he thought it would be a collision, since the ball was there so far in advance.

In HS, swipe tags are more common, because of the malicious contact rule.

[kylejt]

Honestly, I thought is was a heck of a call.

On a swipe tag we're looking for glove movement. Something to indicate a tag is made. That didn't happen. And unless he heard some sort of "tick!" if the mitt hitting something, that's the right call to make.

Now, watching his body language after the call, he then thinks he got it wrong. He's second guessing himself as he's walking off the field.

[APG]

For all the calamity I've heard about the call, it's not that bad of a missed called...if we can even say that with 100 percent certainty.

[jdmara]

I would like to see the video that shows proof that he was tagged. I believe that most of us would call the out but this is a potentially spectacular call.

I usually don't pay much attention to the pitch trackers but I'm curious about this very lengthy game. Do they have trackers that break it down this game and what the "correct ball/strike percentage" was?

-Josh