MN-HOU OBS at Plate?

[zoops]

Twins announcers talked about this play for about an hour saying it should have gone their way.  I've seen it called OBS in the past but even as a Twins fan common sense tells me this is an out.  Hmm, embed shows up fine in the preview but not here...a link anyways:  

 

 

[Richvee]

I agree with the out call here, no OBS. Mauer did not alter his path to the plate, F2 had the ball before Mauer got near him. 

[maven]

The runner altering his path is not a condition of OBS. The ball arriving first does not excuse OBS, especially when it's bang bang (don't let slo-mo fool you).

I've seen replay rule these OBS/7.13 violations.

[ricka56]

7.13 allow F2 to be where he needs to be to catch the throw.
F2 was where he was at in order to catch the throw...and there was no monkey business.
Whether or not he was in the runner's path isn't material.
So, there can be no 7.13 rule violation on F2.   

[Richvee]

The runner altering his path is not a condition of OBS. The ball arriving first does not excuse OBS, especially when it's bang bang (don't let slo-mo fool you).

I've seen replay rule these OBS/7.13 violations.

I've seen OBS called on these plays too...but I still like the non call here. ..."The catcher cannot block the "pathway" of the runner as he s attempting to score".....

OK. This might sound crazy, but do we need to define pathway? How far ahead of the runner's position at any given time is his pathway? If he's 50 feet down the line does his pathway extend 40 feet to home? If he's 10 feet from home and starts a feet first slide directly into the base and F2 catches the ball while as R3 starts his slide, has F2 actually blocked his "pathway"? 

I know it doesn't say alter his path in the rule, but for me, I can't understand what F2 is actually obstructing if the runner is sliding full speed into home and F2 has the ball before the runner gets to him. 

[johnnyg08]

INT on Mauer for swatting at the glove.