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The Baltimore Orioles beat the Chicago White Sox on Thursday, 8-6, but not before an extremely controversial interference call ended the game.
During the bottom of the ninth, Andrew Benintendi hit a pop-up in the infield with two runners on base, triggering the infield fly rule. But as shortstop Gunnar Henderson went to catch the ball, he had to circumvent Andrew Vaughn, who had his back to Vaughn and was walking toward second base.
Vaughn was deemed to have interfered with Henderson and was called out, and the game ended on a bizarre, unassisted double play.
Major League Baseball reportedly reached out to White Sox after the controversial ruling and said the call shouldn’t have been made, per ESPN’s Jesse Rogers.
By the absolute letter of the law, the ruling was justifiable. Rule 6:01(a) states: “A runner who is adjudged to have hindered a fielder who is attempting to make a play on a batted ball is out whether it was intentional or not.”
“Actually the shortstop made contact with him, so with the interference, that’s an out,” crew chief Adrian Johnson told reporters after the game. “And you still have the infield fly, and that’s an out also.”
“So there doesn’t have to actually even be contact,” third-base umpire Junior Valentine added. “If he hinders the fielder in the attempt to field a batted ball, intent is not required and it’s interference.”
Manager Pedro Grifol said after the game that he understood the rule and why it was called by Valentine, but took issue with the rule itself.
“Their shortstop had plenty of time to catch the baseball, and then if you want to talk about the runner, well, how does he know what the fielder is doing behind him?” he told reporters. “All he did was look at the ball, the ball goes up, he’s going back to the bag.”
“He didn’t make contact on purpose,” he continued. “He wasn’t trying to impede Gunnar from catching the fly ball. He wasn’t doing that. It has nothing to do with the way the umpires called the play. I just have an issue with the rule.”
Scott Merkin @scottmerkin
Pedro Grifol on the interference call against Andrew Vaughn at second on Andrew Benintendi’s one-out pop up ending Thurs’ loss: “They [the umpires] called the play correctly based on the rules. I just don’t like the rule. No game should end like that. That’s just my opinion.”
Vaughn, meanwhile, had no idea how he could have handled the situation in a way that wouldn’t have triggered the call.
“He breezed by me. He uttered something like ‘get out of the way’ or something. And I was going back to the bag,” he told reporters. “I don’t know where he’s at. I don’t know what other decision, I would like an answer to that.”
Ryan Chiaverini @RyanChiaverini
Human error & umpire judgement is part of the game but Andrew Vaughn getting called for obstruction tonight to end the @whitesox game was one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen. Seriously Ever.
Ryan McGuffey @RyanMcGuffey
That’s an absolutely awful call and ending to the #WhiteSox game. Andrew Vaughn being called for interference after an infield fly rule.
In this case, it felt like the umpires involved could have used some discretion and evaluated the play in its specific context. The wording of the rule, namely the part that reads “a runner who is adjudged to have hindered a fielder,” left open room for umpire interpretation.
Henderson made the play, and fairly easily, with plenty of time after crossing paths with Vaughn. It’s hard to argue that Vaughn meaningfully hindered Henderson in any way. Major League Baseball reportedly felt it was an uncharitable application of the rule as well.
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