he Toronto Blue Jays edged the Baltimore Orioles 6-4 in Sunday’s rubber match of their three-game series. However, the outcome was in part dependent upon a controversial non-call in the bottom of the sixth that’s probably going to stick in the Orioles’ craw for some time.
That bottom of the sixth flipped a 4-0 Orioles lead into a 5-4 Blue Jays advantage, but it’s possible none of that should have come to pass. With the score 4-1 in Baltimore’s favor, one out, and runners on the corners, Brandon Valenzuela chopped a 1-1 breaking ball from Shane Baz to shortstop Gunnar Henderson. Before retiring Valenzuela at first, Henderson tried to make it an inning-ending double play by tagging Ernie Clement, who was on his way from first to second. That didn’t happen because Clement veered wide to avoid Henderson’s tag. Despite Clement’s very indirect path to the bag, second base umpire Nic Lentz did not call him out for deviating from the base path.
The Orioles’ arguments were for naught, Jesús Sánchez scored on the play, and shortly thereafter three two-out RBI hits gave the Blue Jays a lead they would hold.
Here’s the relevant portion of Major League Baseball Rule 5.09(b):
Any runner is out when:
(1) He runs more than three feet away from his base path to avoid being tagged unless his action is to avoid interference with a fielder fielding a batted ball. A runner’s base path is established when the tag attempt occurs and is a straight line from the runner to the base he is attempting to reach safely;
There’s not a set and fixed base path. Rather, the runner established his own path when, as noted, the instant the tag is attempted. At that very specific point, the base path becomes a straight line from the runner directly to the base he’s trying to reach. That’s in line with what Orioles manager Craig Albernaz was told by umpires:
Clement was indeed fairly wide of what we think of as the baseline between first and second at the moment Henderson attempted the tag, and whether he ever deviated more than three feet from that invisible straight line that he’d just established is the question. That Clement began veering wide in anticipation of the tag may have saved him from being called out.
As for Henderson, he said, “I’m not gonna go chase him to right field when I’m trying to turn a double play there.”
That’s certainly an understandable instinct, as the goal becomes just getting the one out after the double play is rendered impossible. Needless to say, Baz on the mound was perhaps the one most frustrated by the non-call. “The only reason that I’m not gonna talk about that play is because I will get fined,” he said post-game.
On the other side, Jays manager John Schneider took the diplomatic route, via MLB.com:
“Ernie… I haven’t looked at it yet, maybe fortunate there. I think that the runner has three feet and Ernie’s good at disguising that sometimes, I guess.”
No doubt adding to the Orioles’ angst is that Jackson Holliday, as the potential tying run, was called out in the ninth for, yes, deviating from the base path:
The outcome improved the Jays, the reigning American League champions, to 32-34 on the season. Despite being below .500, Toronto is now just a half-game out of the third and final AL wild-card spot as of this writing. As for the Orioles, the loss drops them to 31-35, but they’re just 1 ½ games out of playoff position.