Boston's Infield Fly Interference Play - Part 3 of Ongoing Saga

[Lindsay]

After umpires called an inning-ending double play due to runner Tyler O'Neill's interference during Rafael Devers' infield fly in Boston, Red Sox manager Alex Cora argued with 1B Umpire John Bacon and 2B Umpire Andy Fletcher—who both called the infraction–to no avail, now the third time infield fly interference has occurred in baseball this season after remaining largely dormant for the past decade.

With one out and runners at first and second base in the bottom of the 7th inning, Boston batter Devers hit a first-pitch sweeper from Mariners pitcher Tayler Saucedo for a fly ball somewhat near first base. While attempting to field the fly ball, Seattle first baseman Justin Turner collided with Boston baserunner R1 O'Neill, off his base, resulting in an interference call from the two closest umpires as the runner hindered and impeded Turner's ability to make a play.

At the conclusion of play, umpires declared O'Neill out for interference and Devers out on the infield fly rule, thus ending the inning.

Recall baseball's right of way rules relative to baserunning, interference, and obstruction:

On a batted ball, the FIELDER has the right to field the ball.

At any other time, the RUNNER has the right to run the bases.

Accordingly, on Devers' batted ball, the fielding team—Seattle—had right of way privileges. Official Baseball Rule 6.01(a)(10) puts a runner out for interference when "they fail to avoid a fielder who is attempting to field a batted ball, or intentionally interfere with a thrown ball, provided that if two or more fielders attempt to field a batted ball, and the runner comes in contact with one or more of them, the umpire shall determine which fielder is entitled to the benefit of this rule, and shall not declare the runner out for coming in contact with a fielder other than the one the umpire determines to be entitled to field such a ball."

The tricky part is on baserunner interference, the ball is ordinarily dead at the moment of interference. When interference occurs during an infield fly, however, "the ball remains alive until it is determined whether the ball is fair or foul. If fair, both the runner who interfered with the fielder and the batter are out. If foul, even if caught, the runner is out and the batter returns to bat."

Because the ball in this situation remains alive solely for the purpose of determining fair/foul status, the umpire must decide which fielder to protect—who may ordinarily be expected to try for the fly—while the ball is still in the air and before any fielder is camped under it. For this reason, it does not matter that Mariners second baseman Jorge Polanco ultimately caught the ball—it was dead before the catch even happened.

Based on the timing requirement, Turner was deemed the protected fielder and, thus, O'Neill's interference resulted in an infield fly-aided inning-ending double play.

Video as follows:
Alternate Link: Bacon & Fletcher both nab interference during an infield fly at Fenway Park

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[Velho]

This time was easy to call as R1 was intentionally interfering with F3.

The high end front offices are failing the teams by not sharing these situations with the team. Seems pretty simple to collate these and provide instruction to the players (heck just give them the close call sports YouTube link).

[ArchAngel72]

I mean these are MLB players.  That one was "OK I will just stop here in his way"   pretty damn simple to see he purposely did nothing to get out of his way. /facepalm

 

Some of the other ones where it was Very close to the bag I agree with the calls but at least they are AT the bag and I can understand the confusion on the runners part.  But Damn Cora teach your players Do not block fielders from fielding and you wont get called for crap like that.  

 

Grr  being a Boston fan is tough at times

[Velho]

26 minutes ago, ArchAngel72 said:

Grr  being a Boston fan is tough at times

Oh, wahh. LOL. Try being from Seattle

[BLWizzRanger]

3 hours ago, Velho said:

Oh, wahh. LOL. Try being from Seattle

Jeesh....  Neither of you have anything to complain about.  Try rooting for a team where we celebrate a wild card playoff win over a decade ago because the crowd affected the opposing pitcher to drop the ball while engaged to the rubber.  But, we are over .500 at Aug 1 for the first time for ever.

[834k3r]

18 minutes ago, Velho said:

Oh, wahh. LOL. Try being from Seattle

👆💯

I'm used to flipping the calendar to May and thinking, "welp, the Mariners are out of playoff contention now."

[SeeingEyeDog]

4 hours ago, Velho said:

This time was easy to call as R1 was intentionally interfering with F3.

The high end front offices are failing the teams by not sharing these situations with the team. Seems pretty simple to collate these and provide instruction to the players (heck just give them the close call sports YouTube link).

The more of CCS/Lindsay's analysis I absorb, the more I am convinced that MLB players and coaches do not know the rules of the game they play. And...I would suspect most pro athletes across all sports have a fundamental knowledge at best of the rules of their games. Then again, until I started umpiring I had NO CLUE how poor my rules knowledge was and...I continue to learn things about the rules every year.

What CCS and Lindsay do so well, is keep it short and sweet and really try to keep the focus on the facts and then she literally projects the specific citation(s) into her content. And when it does have to do with judgement, she does her best to explain WHY the umpire called it the way they did. And even she will admit, she doesn't always have the umpire's angle and distance so, she is not seeing what they see and they are not seeing what she sees.

I don't know...given how brief and distilled her clips are, were I an MLB manager, I would select the relevant CCS clips (not the ejection clips, necessarily...) and show them to the team as they become available. I'm sure there are many, many players and coaches out there who do not understand this IFF interference call. Forget about the merits of the call...F3's positioning...F4's positioning...who the umpire is protecting...forget all of that. Show players the clip and tell them (as @ArchAngel72) points out, "Guys, you see what Tyler O'Neill does here? Don't do that on a batted ball! Don't put that in the umpire's lap because they will grab interference there as the rules require..."

~Dawg

[kylehutson]

Were I in a position to make an MLB rules change (and obviously I am not), I would change this rule so that on an infield fly, any interference supersedes the infield fly.

You would end up with the runner out (like they are now), a dead ball, and the B/R on first base. It takes away the argument that the defense is getting a double-play when none was otherwise possible, and it still provides incentive not to interfere (because you don't want to keep running the bases yourself.

Inadvertent? Doesn't matter to the team (they still have the same number of runners on base), even though the runner might be mad.

[MadMax]

32 minutes ago, kylehutson said:

You would end up with the runner out (like they are now), a dead ball (called dead in air, on INT), and the B/R on first base (if Fair). 
 

em mine. 
 

Huh. 🤔 That’s actually how it works for lone runner on (anywhere), R1-R3, R2-R3 and < 2 outs. 

Insightful. 

[dumbdumb]

whatever happened to making the team creating a violation, not gaining an advantage from that violation.

another win for letting the offense off the hook and penalizing the defense. making rules advantageous for the offense rather than the defense. (oops i forgot about the left hander stepping towards home rather than directly to first).

personally, if the offensive team had a slower player on the bases than the batter, that slower player should be told to do the same thing that happened on this play, so the faster batter got on base, and now we had the fastest 2 out of 3 runners on base, and only 1 or 2 outs, rather than 2 or 3 and an inning ender.

it will be great to score 2 runs on a gapper rather than maybe only 1 run if we now have two road runners on the bases rather than the original hokey pokey due to that rule change.

[kylehutson]

On 8/2/2024 at 7:24 PM, dumbdumb said:

whatever happened to making the team creating a violation, not gaining an advantage from that violation.

another win for letting the offense off the hook and penalizing the defense. making rules advantageous for the offense rather than the defense. (oops i forgot about the left hander stepping towards home rather than directly to first).

personally, if the offensive team had a slower player on the bases than the batter, that slower player should be told to do the same thing that happened on this play, so the faster batter got on base, and now we had the fastest 2 out of 3 runners on base, and only 1 or 2 outs, rather than 2 or 3 and an inning ender.

it will be great to score 2 runs on a gapper rather than maybe only 1 run if we now have two road runners on the bases rather than the original hokey pokey due to that rule change.

You're assuming that a runner would keep the team in mind over his own personal ego. Not completely unheard of in MLB, but certainly rare.

And if they're that smart, and also selfless... Cool, let them do that. Are you going to tell your speedster to try to hit an IFF so you can trade an out for speedier runners? Let's face it - the IFF/INT situation is even more rare than the selfless MLB player, and this would just help avoid arguments and ejections in these cases.

On 8/2/2024 at 1:49 PM, MadMax said:

em mine.

Obviously (or should be for this forum, anyway).