MLB blows clear cut replay call in Red Sox-Yankees game, admits it

That is an out…

We might not even be talking about this had it not happened late in a Red Sox-Yankees game. Even though the play had no ultimate bearing on the outcome, it’s still pretty embarrassing for MLB.

Here’s what happened: In the bottom of the 8th, the Yankees’ Dean Anna hit what looked like a clean double to right field. Except it wasn’t in fact a clean double. It was an out.

Red Sox manager John Farrell came out to challenge the play. Replay showed that Anna’s foot had come slightly off the bag while Xander Bogaerts was still applying the tag. Therefore Anna was out at second.

Anyone watching on television automatically assumed the play would be overturned. The challenge went up to the highly sophisticated war room-like MLB replay center. And the umpires in the replay center…upheld the call of safe.

Even though the television audience saw pretty straight forward, irrefutable visual evidence that the runner was out.

The call ended up having no bearing on the game like I said – the Yankees scored no more runs as a result of the call, and went on to win one way or the other – but that’s beside the point. Replay is there to get calls right. And this time, replay got the call wrong. Even though it should have been a very easy call.

Red Sox skipper John Farrell doesn’t care that the call meant nothing to the outcome of the game. He’s still bothered by the replay fail.

“We had probably five angles that confirmed the foot was off the base, and when the safe call came back, it certainly raises questions on if they’re getting the same feed we are, the consistency of the system,” Farrell said after the game per the Boston Herald. “It makes you scratch your head a little bit on why it was called safe.”

But we saw the inside of the MLB command center. All those screens. How could those umpires not have the same replays the TV audience and even the Red Sox themselves were able to see?

It turns out, amazingly, the command center did not have access to the same angles the rest of us could see while watching the game at home on our televisions. MLB admitted as much, per Ken Rosenthal.

“MLB did not have immediate access to conclusive angle on Anna play at second. Acknowledges that call should have been made differently,” Rosenthal reported via Twitter.

Really? Well then clearly replay is broken. That’s it. Shut the whole system down.

If they can’t get one right that is as clear as day to anyone watching the game at home, then forget it.

That whole command center? All that technology? A complete waste of time and effort.

Seriously. Why are we slowing the games down? It doesn’t make sense.

At the very least, MLB needs to table instant replay until they can get these kinks worked out. Maybe just put it away until next season. Obviously, they do not have a handle on this.

They can’t even get the same angles that the TV audience is getting. How? Just…how?

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