The Los Angeles Dodgers needed 13 innings to beat the New York Mets on Friday night.
The game would’ve been over a lot sooner if not for one of the weirdest obstruction calls you’ll ever see.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, Pete Alonso flew out to right field, and Starling Marte tagged up from third base.
Teoscar Hernandez made a great throw to the plate to gun down Marte.
Except, the umpires overturned the call.
Why?
Because they ruled Muncy had obstructed at third base.
Video replays show that Muncy was nowhere near Marte. But a fielder can be called for obstruction for blocking the view of a catch on a tag-up play such as this.
“The way you explain it is, if the ball gets cut from the first baseman, you have to be there to make a play. And [third-base umpire Tripp Gibson] felt that I wasn’t far enough away,” Muncy told MLB.com. “He felt that I was purposely doing it, and he felt that I made a conscious effort to stand in the way. Every third baseman in the league does that. Never seen it called, and it was actually called twice tonight.”
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The umpire also made the same ruling in the 13th inning when the Dodgers scored a run on a sac fly, so the call was irrelevant because no out was made.
“You look at that visual obstruction, he called it twice, once on us, once on them,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And that’s a Gibson umpire discretion call. So at least he was consistent.”
Hopefully umpires don’t make a habit of this one. Seems about as tough of a judgment call as there can be.
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