In the top of the eighth inning Thursday, during Merrifield’s first game with the Toronto Blue Jays, he blasted a Trevor Megill 98 mph fastball for a single, moved to second on a base hit and took off sprinting for third when George Springer sneaked a ball down the left side.
As he rounded the bag, Merrifield picked up his third base coach, Luis Rivera, waving at him. He then shifted his gaze to home plate, where he saw Minnesota Twins catcher Gary Sanchez standing directly over him.
“Gary used to take home plate then, too,” Merrifield recalled. “But the throw was cut, so there was no play at the plate. But, in the back of my head, I had a little awareness of how it sets up at home. And I had a feeling…”
Merrifield withdrew. It was about 20 minutes after the Blue Jays won Sunday’s dramatic matinee with the Twins, 3-2, to split a hotly contested, back-to-back series played in front of raucous, packed houses between two teams built for big post- season. Over the course of four days in Minneapolis, there were 38 runs scored, 9 lead changes, two shutouts and a riveting, controversial plate play to cap it all. It seemed like a long series.
“It’s done, it’s done,” Merrifield said. “This is a very good team, Minnesota. And they’re also in the middle of the playoff hunt. It felt like one of the biggest series I’ve played in a while.”
From where Luis Rivera was standing, he saw a player playing left field.
Down by one in the bottom of the ninth Sunday, the Twins rallied against Blue Jays closer Jordan Romano, combining for a hit by pitch and a pair of singles to break the tie. Tim Beckham, who struck out Carlos Correa, who led off the inning with a groundout, was that run. And he stayed in the game for the top of the 10th, heading to left field to take over for Jake Cave, who was hit by Correa.
Rivera saw Beckham jogging out there and took note. He knew Beckham had spent most of his career at shortstop, second base and third. He also knew that Beckham had been off the field a little, but not much. What were the odds that he was ready to pitch?
“I thought he didn’t get too many reps there,” Rivera said of Beckham, who entered the game with 94 career innings in left field but just three this season. “And we have a good runner at third. So, thinking about the situation, I thought we could take a chance with these guys.”
In addition, Rivera had just watched Merrifield go from second to third on a Santiago Espinal fly ball to Byron Buxton in center. The ball wasn’t hit particularly deep, and Buxton has a cannon — his throw to third from 320 feet was 93.7 mph — but Merrifield ran headfirst into the bag right in front of Rivera as The Coach of the Blue Jays extended his arms in a safety motion before the third-base umpire even ruled.
“It wasn’t very deep. I thought he was just going to fake it. I didn’t think he would actually do it,” Rivera said. “And then he goes and I thought, ‘Oh, my God. This guy is fast.”
Quick sidebar about tagging Merrifield up to third: this was the most challenging read of the try-for-home selection. And Merrifield almost didn’t. He knows what kind of arm Buxton has. But when he saw the Twins center forward drifting back and to his left while tracking the ball, he made a snap decision at the last second to go forward.
“I knew he was on the bench all day. So, I knew it might not have gone all the way up,” Merrifield said. “But he’s one of the best out there. He made a great shot and luckily I just won it. I got to third place, I’m watching the replay, “Huh, that was a little closer than I’d like it to be.”
Or, as Rivera put it: “That was the game. That made all the difference. Because if he stays on second base, we’d never have a home game.”
Right, back to the home game. After the fine safe decision was upheld on Merrifield’s slide into third, the next pitch was lofted into left field by Cavan Biggio. And as Rivera saw that outfielder settle under it, he didn’t think twice.
“When the ball went up in the air, I immediately decided we were going to challenge him,” Rivera said. “And, you know what, he made a really good shot.”
Beckham did, blasting a seed at 88.4 mph on a liner to Gary Sanchez at the plate as Merrifield barreled down the third base line at 29.3 feet per second.
You obviously saw what happened next. Foot first slide; Sanchez’s knee down in front of the plate. Home plate umpire Marty Foster signals out. Merrifield sits on the dirt and points to the house. the Twins coming off the field to celebrate.
“I was like, ‘He’s blocking the plate! It’s blocking the plate!’ Merrifield recalled. “And [Foster] he said, “Yes, they will look at it. They will look at it.’ So they looked at it.”
From where John Snyder stood, he felt he could see it all too well himself.
“I went out and [crew chief Alan Porter] he said, “What do you dispute? Safe or the rule of transparency?’ Snyder recalls. “And I said, ‘Slide, for one. I don’t think it made it to the plate.”
There was no arguing that Merrifield came under Sanchez’s label. His feet may never have touched the plate. But for the Blue Jays, that was irrelevant. They felt Sanchez had blocked Merrifield’s path home.
As you will find on page 73 of the MLB rulebook, “unless the catcher has possession of the ball, the catcher may not obstruct the path of the runner as he attempts to score. If, in the judgment of the umpire, the catcher without possession of the ball blocks the runner’s path, the umpire shall call or signal the runner safe.”
Merrifield is well aware of this rule. Just as, remember, he was well aware of how Sanchez tends to set up when he’s about to take a shot at the plate. Both of these things entered his mind as he ran to the plate. And in a split-second decision, Merrifield decided the best thing to do was slide feet first toward the plate, into which Sanchez’s knee was falling forward.
“I saw Gary carrying to his house. So I tried to slide right into him as best I could,” Merrifield said. “I know what the rule is. It was just a matter of whether they were going to call it or not.
“Obviously, it’s a big point in the game and you don’t want to end up with a rule decision. But the rule exists for a reason. He wasn’t there a while ago. I could run him down and try to free the ball. But he can’t do it anymore. So, it has to give me a lane to slide into. And I didn’t think I had.”
MLB’s Replay Command Center in New York agreed. They ruled that “Sanchez’s movements in foul territory were not in reaction to the trajectory of the throw and he did not need to be in that position to receive the ball. The catcher’s actions while not in possession of the ball impeded and hindered the runner.”
Target Field was bedlam. Half Twins fans booing the refs. Half the Blue Jays fans — having made the trip south from Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Western Ontario — celebrating the result. In the Blue Jays dugout, Snyder wasn’t surprised.
“I think the call was right. That’s why they have the rule in place,” Schneider said. “And credit to Witt for A’s getting to third in downtown Buxton. And then B, he slid right into home, which I think made this game a little more relevant. We saw this live and in person and it was confirmed on video. The rules are the rules. And I’m glad Whit did it the way he did.”
From where Rocco Baldelli was standing, it was, ahem, “one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen on a baseball field.”
Oh, and the Minnesota Twins manager went on.
“This game has not been shown since the beginning of the replay more than twice. In all of baseball, the thousands of games and home runs where the catcher actually blocks the plate, over and over and over again, that play has basically never been made,” Baldelli said.
“And for someone to step in, in that situation, and ultimately decide that that was blocking the dish — that’s beyond embarrassing. For our game. For all the players out there on both sides of the court kicking their ass. For the whole game. It is completely unacceptable.”
It really says something about the ambiguous gray area that this particular rule exists in that, simultaneously, for those in blue the play was judged right according to the letter of the law, and for those in red it was royally inappropriate. There was no ambiguity. Both sides were fully condemned.
Baldelli was as enraged as anyone had ever seen him, storming into his home, banging his hat, yelling at the umpire’s crew, even pointing angrily at the press box – presumably in a move to New York’s Replay Command Center – in a range of detail.
The Twins manager said after the game that his anger stemmed largely from the belief that the home plate collision rule is rarely enforced. Meanwhile, a few states to the east Sunday afternoon, a seventh-inning out call at the plate was overturned in Baltimore when a replay review determined Orioles catcher Robinson Chirinos had blocked the plate.
“It’s one of the worst moments I think we’ve seen officiating in any game I’ve been involved in…
