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.
"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."
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.
