Rays Fans, We Have A Problem: TB on the Wrong Side of Too Many Ridiculously Bad Calls

The Rays have been on the wrong side of two very mysterious calls over the last few days (not to mention a whole host of other "close calls" that went against them throughout this year). The first incident involved a phantom turn toward second by BJ Upton on Tuesday, August 19th against the first place LA Angels. BJ Upton busted it down the line and beat out a ground ball. The umpire called BJ out when he ruled that BJ made an attempt to head towards second. Joe Maddon lost it and was thrown out of the game for arguing the call. Incidentally, the Rays came back to win the game despite this unbelievably bad call.

Tonight, the Rays headed into extra innings against the Chicago White Sox. In the bottom of the 10th, A.J. Pierzynski reached base on a single and advanced to second by tagging up on a fly ball to deep center field. On the ensuing at bat, Jermaine Dye hit a hard ground ball to shortstop Jason Bartlett who promptly got Pierzynski into a run down between 2nd and 3rd. When Aybar (playing 3B) threw the ball to Bartlett, he clearly moved to the left to get out of Pierzynski’s way, but Pierzynski threw his arm out to the side making contact with Aybar (albeit very slight contact). The umpire (Eddings), stopped play and called obstruction awarding 3B to Pierzynski. This ended up being the winning run and the Rays lost the game in the bottom of the 10th.

VIEW THE VIDEO OF THE PLAY HERE

Here is what one of the other esteemed members of the umpiring crew had to say about the call after the game:

"What Doug ruled at second base was, even though A.J. did kind of stick his arm out to make contact, Aybar was still in his way, so A.J., if he would have turned, he wouldn't have been able to continue on to third," said third-base umpire Ted Barrett, who addressed the situation after the game. "So after making the throw, Aybar is no longer in the act of fielding and he can't obstruct the runner, which is what Doug ruled happened. In a rundown, even though A.J. was going back to second, the rule of obstruction during a rundown is he gets his next advanced base and that's why he was rewarded third base."

So, a baserunner can legally “kind of stick his arm out to make contact” with a fielder and wind up being awarded a base? Are you kidding me? To make things even worse, the umpire said "if he would have turned, he would not have been able to continue to third." So, according to Mr. Barrett, baserunners can legally stick their arm out to make contact with a fielder AND they don't even need to turn around and run towards 3rd to get an obstruction call!!! Icing on the cake is that Burnett did not fully cover Eddings' back on the call (note the bolded section above). He simply says that this is what Eddings ruled and did not affirm that the ruling was correct.

Regardless of the crew's explanation above, I thought I would do a little research and here is what I found in the MLB rulebook regarding the definition of offensive interference:

INTERFERENCE
(a) Offensive interference is an act by the team at bat which interferes with,
obstructs, impedes, hinders or confuses any fielder attempting to make a play.
If the umpire declares the batter, batter-runner, or a runner out for interference,
all other runners shall return to the last base that was in the judgment of the
umpire, legally touched at the time of the interference, unless otherwise
provided by these rules.

The umpire says Aybar was not in the act of fielding, but the rule book does not say that. The rule book says “any fielder attempting to make a play.” If it weren’t bad enough that Aybar clearly would not have made contact with Pierzynski had Pierzynski not stuck his arm out, the umpire misquoted the rule book (or so it appears from one spectators chair). You can check out the rules for yourself HERE. Comments encouraged.