A bizarre play prompted a 17-minute delay that sent the umpiring crew to page 51 of the MLB rulebook and tested the patience of manager John Schneider. Ultimately, the Blue Jays still earned a 2-1 win over the Red Sox to improve to 57-63 on the season, but not before one of the weirder plays in recent memory.
With the Blue Jays leading 2-0 in the top of the seventh, Boston rallied. Anthony Seigler and Connor Wong singled with none out, giving the Red Sox their best threat of the night.
Nick Sogard then grounded into a force out, at which point the Rogers Centre scoreboard showed two outs instead of one. This mistake confused some of the Red Sox, as Sogard and Seigler took off from first and third, respectively, when Ceddanne Rafaela hit a lazy fly ball to centre.
“No excuse,” Siegler told reporters later. “It’s unacceptable.”
“We’ve got to know there’s one out regardless of what’s on the board,” Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy added.
Everyone agrees that the players are responsible for knowing how many outs there are, but there’s some disagreement on how the rest of the inning should have unfolded.
With the Red Sox runners circling the bases, the Blue Jays doubled off Sogard at first. Seigler crossed home plate, but home plate umpire Charlie Ramos indicated that the run didn’t count since Sogard was doubled up before Seigler scored.
“The inning was deemed to be over,” Schneider said. “Charlie Ramos waved off the run, so everyone assumed that was that.”
Working off the assumption that the inning was over, the Blue Jays ran off the field. That’s crucial to this sequence because the moment the players crossed the foul line the Blue Jays lost their chance to appeal.
When the umpires consulted with MLB headquarters in New York during the 17 minutes that followed, they determined Seigler had crossed home plate before Sogard was doubled up at first. Technically speaking that meant the run counted.
“In order for the run not to score, Toronto would have had to make an appeal at third base before the infielders left the infield,” said crew chief Chris Guccione. “Once they left the infield, at that point, the run scores.”
Yet the Blue Jays felt they’d missed their chance to appeal because of unclear communication at field level. Why tell the defenders to remain on the field when the umpires are indicating that the run doesn’t count?
“No one was given that opportunity to (appeal) based on the reaction from the four umpires,” Schneider said. “Everyone was obviously affected by the call on the field of no run, so we didn’t have any kind of countermeasure.”
Rafaela was credited with a rare sacrifice fly double play. Meanwhile, the Blue Jays were frustrated by the way the entire process unfolded.
“After consulting with MLB, they told me that all of my players were across the third base line before Charlie waved off the run, which I 100 per cent disagree with,” Schneider said. “I don’t know if (Vladimir Guerrero Jr.) is that fast.”
In the extremely unlikely case that this happens again, the safe move is simply to throw to third and double up the runner there. Thankfully, this bizarre play wasn’t the difference maker Monday.
As Schneider said: “I’m glad we didn’t lose by one.”
Still, there are significant questions for the pitching staff since the rotation now faces another injury while the bullpen’s workload just keeps increasing.
Starter Jameson Taillon was removed from the game with right forearm discomfort, creating more uncertainty for an already depleted rotation. Taillon will go for an MRI, with more information expected Tuesday.
“Hopefully, we can be proactive. I don’t want to take any chances with him,” Schneider said. “Hoping for the best.”
Meanwhile, Trey Yesavage met with a doctor to determine the severity of his meniscus injury Monday and Spencer Arrighetti’s dealing with Morton’s neuroma, a condition where skin builds up near a nerve in the foot and creates discomfort.
Under the circumstances, the three innings of one-run baseball from Simeon Woods Richardson were pivotal to the win. He may be asked to take on a bigger role moving forward considering the workload on the bullpen.
The team’s last day off was nearly two weeks ago, on July 30. Since then, their relievers have pitched at least three innings every single day. Lately, the workload has spiked even more with an average of more than five relief innings per day over the last week.
Playing four extra-innings games in a five-day period will do that to a bullpen, and these recent injuries haven’t helped either. To their credit the Blue Jays keep winning, but this pitching staff is overdue for a break.
A few hours before first pitch, the Blue Jays scratched Kazuma Okamoto from the starting lineup because he was still feeling the effects of fouling a ball off his left knee in Philadelphia Sunday.
Charles McAdoo took his place in the starting lineup and made an impact on both sides of the ball, holding his own at third base while homering to right field to open the scoring in the fifth.
Later, George Springer would single, steal a base and score the second run of the game. Given the dramatics that unfolded soon afterwards, that insurance run proved essential.
Even after all this effort, the current stretch of 17 games in 17 days isn’t close to ending. The Blue Jays are still six games away from their next off day with lots of work to do in the meantime whether or not the rulebook’s on their side.