Wednesday afternoon's series finale between the Cleveland Guardians and New York Yankees featured some early instant replay chaos at Progressive Field. The bottom of the first inning appeared to end when Aaron Hicks made a sliding catch in center field and doubled José Ramírez off second base before Steven Kwan crossed the plate, keeping a run off the board.
Players from both teams exited the field following the inning-ending double play and each team's television network went to commercial break. When they returned, the umpires were conferencing, and eventually they allowed the Guardians to challenge the Hicks catch. Replays showed he trapped the ball and eventually the call was overturned, and no outs were recorded.
Here's the play:
Under the new pace of play rules managers must immediately inform the umpires they want to look at the play, and they then have 15 seconds to formally request a review. Obviously more than 15 seconds had passed before the umpires went to replay (there was an entire commercial break!). Needless to say, Yankees manager Aaron Boone went ballistic, and was ejected for arguing.
"They conferred, and then after they conferred, they go to them for the challenge," Boone said after the game (per NJ.com). "I just think it completely bailed them out. I disagree still. We've been told all winter and all spring that we have to be ready. It gets thrown up on the scoreboard. I'm not saying they looked at the scoreboard, but obviously you can feel the emotion in the building, and then it's them getting together to get it right and then going to Cleveland. I think, in the end, bailing them out. I took exception to it. They got the play right, I will say that. but there's no way -- no way -- that the environment did not create, in my opinion, the end result."
During the game is was announced the Guardians challenged the play. It was not an umpire-initiated review.
Announced in the press box: the #Guardians challenged the Hicks play.
— Gary Phillips (@GaryHPhillips) April 12, 2023
"That was a weird, weird play," Guardians manager Terry Francona said after the game (video). "I'm looking at Kwan tagging, and I have some anxiety that he left early. And then I have some more anxiety that he didn't score. I didn't even look at the play in center. So by time it gets to that point, I hadn't challenged."
After the game, umpire Chris Guccione addressed the play and seemed to be saying that the clock for asking for a review of the play didn't begin until after the umpiring crew huddled and discussed their full initial ruling on the play. Via pool reporter Brendan Kuty, Guccioune said:
"When we got together as a crew, we were determining if the run was going to be scored or not. There was a time play. When we got together as a crew, the 15-second clock then shuts off. Until we break out of our huddle. So, we got together as a crew and we wanted to discuss the whole play, what had happened and if the run scored. We determined when we got together as a crew that the run did not score. So, once we got all that figured out, we went over to Tito to tell him what had transpired. We told him, 'Guys, we have a catch, out at second, no run scores.' And he promptly told us, 'OK, I'd like to challenge the catch in the outfield.' And that's the thing. He promptly did it. He was already ready. He didn't have to check or anything. He promptly did it. So, we did all the rest, radioed up to New York and they came back with a decision that it was no catch, guys at first and third and they scored a run, obviously, because it was no catch. That was the huddle part of it."
Guccione went to say that after the huddle, the between-innings timer began and not the challenge timer. However, Guccione's prior remarks suggest that it would not have mattered since Francona's challenge was immediate after the crew initially huddled:
"There was a very complex play, there was a lot of moving parts, so we wanted to make sure that we had everything. The (challenge) clock never got to start. It started the in-between innings clock. So I'm glancing up there. It's hard to glance at the clock and also explain to Boone what just happened. That was when Larry goes, 'Hold on, we've got to fix this. Let's get together as a crew. At that point, I guess, that's where we got together. The whole other part of the story. But I think any time, if you can get something correct on the field, the 15 seconds really doesn't have to pertain to us ever huddling. That's just the seconds it takes to challenge the call. To get together as a crew, the clock is - we don't really have to worry about the 15 seconds. That's more for manager challenges."
The inning continued after the double play was overturned and the Guardians went on to add a second run and take a 2-0 lead before the first inning was completed for real. Cleveland sent three more batters to plate and forced Yankees starter Clarke Schmidt to throw an additional 10 pitches following the delayed replay.
It should be noted MLB quietly eliminated protests prior to the 2021 season. Here is Rule 7.04:
Protesting a game shall never be permitted, regardless of whether such complaint is based on judgment decisions by the umpire or an allegation that an umpire misapplied these rules or otherwise rendered a decision in violation of these rules.
Protests were allowed when a team believed a rule had been misapplied and, if the protest was successful, the game would be replayed from the point of the protest. The Yankees could have argued the replay rules were misapplied when the Guardians were allowed to challenge after such a long wait, but alas, protests are no more.
Of course, the Yankees would have dropped their hypothetical protest because they rallied to win Wednesday's game (NYY 4, CLE 3). The Yankees have won their first four series of the season for only the fifth time in franchise history.
