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Major League Baseball is standing behind the replay reversal that took the winning run away from the Detroit Tigers in a game last week against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Detroit’s Nicholas Castellanos was initially called safe in the bottom of the 10th inning Friday, and the Tigers spilled onto the field to celebrate what they thought was a win on opening day. After a review, Castellanos was ruled out , and the game continued. Pittsburgh ended up winning 13-10 in 13 innings .
Before Monday’s game against Kansas City, Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire indicated that general manager Al Avila had spoken with MLB.
“We had our conversation with them, yes. There was definitely mistakes made,” Gardenhire said. “The time of it was definitely wrong. I mean, it’s supposed to be a two-minute ordeal, or we move on, right? And they ended up going almost four. We heard what we wanted to hear, I would tell you that. I’m not going to say anything else other than that. They told us what we knew was right.”
Major League Baseball, however, is standing behind the decision.
“The nature of the exchange with the Tigers was that the replay officials made the correct call based on conclusive evidence,” MLB said in a statement Monday. “The video clearly shows the catcher applying the tag on the upper right arm of the runner.”
According to baseball’s review regulations, the replay official is supposed to make a decision within two minutes, but additional time can be permitted if there are circumstances in which “the replay director (or other management official serving on his behalf) reasonably believes that granting additional time to the replay official is more likely to result in an incorrect call being overturned.”
Gardenhire said he knows there’s some leeway on the two-minute limit, but he felt this was excessive.
“I mean, you’re talking almost double the time limit they’re talking about,” Gardenhire said. “Two minutes, and then it goes on. This got to three, three minutes and 40 seconds, right? And they’re looking for a needle in a haystack now, and there was a mistake made. That was talked about.”
Immediately after the reversal, Gardenhire came over to argue and was ejected. He’s aware of the irony — the umpiring crew he was arguing with had called Castellanos safe initially, only to have that call overturned.
“As (Pirates manager) Clint Hurdle said, I heard, I’m arguing with the guy that called him safe,” Gardenhire said. “That’s a great way to put it. I wasn’t arguing that, though. I was arguing about the time.”
Detroit’s game Monday was also extended by a replay review. The Tigers had a game-ending double play overturned when the batter was declared safe at first after the review. But this time, Detroit closed the game out for a 6-1 win. (AP)
