So Lonnie Chisenhall Was Probably Out
I don’t know if this is ultimately going to matter much. As I write this, the Yankees are still leading the Indians by a run, and they only need to get six more outs. The odds are in the Yankees’ favor. But, not long ago, the odds were even more in the Yankees’ favor. Then we had controversy. Controversy! Our first controversy of the 2017 postseason, as far as I can tell. The scene: the bottom of the sixth, with two on and two out in an 8-3 game. It’s Chad Green, and it’s Lonnie Chisenhall, and the count is 0-and-2.
That’s not where that pitch was supposed to go. The result: the dreaded 0-and-2 HBP. You’d expect better of Green, and he certainly knew right away he didn’t execute like he wanted to, but if you watch that clip over and over, you might notice something. As the umpire signals for Chisenhall to take his base, Chisenhall appears to be surprised. Not that he was going to turn down the opportunity, but he didn’t respond like someone who’d been hit by a pitch in the body. Gary Sanchez immediately thought that something was wrong. Sanchez thought the ball hit the knob of the bat. Upon super-slow-motion instant replay, it looks like the ball did hit the knob of the bat.
And then the ball went into Sanchez’s glove! Which would make it, technically, a foul tip, which would lead to a strikeout. If the ball hit the bat, then Chisenhall should’ve been out, and that would’ve been the end of it. I’m not saying the instant replay makes it 100% incontestable, but it looks a lot more like bat than hand. And as you probably know, these plays are reviewable. Seems like that should’ve come in handy for the Yankees. They could get the umpires to take a look. They…didn’t. I have no idea why. Something tells me it’s going to come up later on. Sanchez thought Chisenhall was hit in the bat, not the hand, and he gestured toward his own dugout. No review was requested. Within seconds, this would loom awfully large.
Instead of 8-3 in the seventh, it became 8-7 in the sixth. Instead of the Indians’ win expectancy being about 3%, it was about 33%. Now, that’s not all on the call. Even after Chisenhall went to first, the Indians’ odds of winning stood at about 8%, and then Francisco Lindor had to do what he did to Chad Green’s delivery. Green, for his part, should’ve made better pitches. But in our sixth playoff game, we have our first real issue related to a call on the field — and instant replay — and now that I check back in, oh, look at that, the Indians have tied the game up. I’m sure Joe Girardi is looking forward to his presser. I can’t imagine what he’s going to be asked.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Just crazy. I have no idea why girardi didn’t challenge. It just makes no sense in a game like this.
Have to think they might just not have the resolution you’d need to be able to spot that. Who knows!
I think it is over 50 percent, but not incontrovertible evidence.
At the time, the odds of them tying it up were long, challenging and overturning the play would have made them extremely long.
I don’t know why you would let uncertainty stop you from taking an opportunity to basically end the game. What’s the worst that could happen? You lose a challenge that, since you are winning by a bunch and have a dynamite pullpen, you probably don’t need?
I don’t think hindsight is needed to criticise this fairly.
Also in the playoffs you get an additional challenge, AND it was almost the 7th… where challenges basically become free and unlimited (I’ve yet to see the umps decline a challenge request).
Even IF he wanted to save his challenges for later (which is an unimaginable stretch of logic), he would have had one more left and one out away from getting as many as he wanted essentially.
8th inning is when it goes to the umps now
I’m with Mr. Marley. No good reason not to try and challenge it. Girardi made some, let’s say….”questionable” decisions this game
Like, sticking his head up his … ?
Didn’t push a right button all night.
Seriously though, maybe they missed it, after all misteaks happen every now and then.
I have no dog in the fight, but don’t see an obvious challenge or THIS headline. His hand seemed lower, but I could live with either call. The only issue is what happened next. This is a game played and called by humans (at an incredible speed), if there is some margin for error, let it be part of the game. Play on…why does the internet-blogosphere need to make this an issue. If the call goes one way or the other, play on. I do agree to add automation where appropriate. Thanks!
*Insert picture of Abe Simpson yelling at cloud*
Seems like more of an issue with a manager than an umpire.
Also, that would have been a brutally painful foul tip strikeout.
The ump blew the call too, so no just letting him off the hook. Of the 3 guys at the plate, 2 of them knew it hit the knob. It’s at least a shared blame.
in fairness to the ump, this happened in less than the blink of an eye and there was a sound according to Sanchez, which was probably muffled since it was the bottom of the knob, and from where the ump is standing he could not have seen what exactly it hit, it’s his job to do something in that case and Girardi had the means to challenge it and chose not to.
It’s easy from our POV to criticize the ump but I don’t think it’s fair.
Really? You’re blaming the victims?
‘He was asking for it! Why would he fail to challenge if he didn’t want it? And did you see how tight his shirt was?’
On to extra innings!
I kind of feel like the patrons in that Buffalo Wild Wings commercial. Extra Innings!
That was epic. I love extra innings in the playoffs.
Looked like he wanted to challenge, but they rushed him out of it. He looked upset when they flashed to him with no challenge. That begs the question, do the umpires not have the discretion to give a manager more time in a situation that obviously deems it?
If he wanted to challenge, he should have just challenged right away. Waiting is stupid
“Waiting is stupid”. Lol, you obviously are not Buck Showalter.
Maybe Chisenhall was doing something when his back was turned that you can’t see on the video to try to sell it, but when I heard about the play (I didn’t watch the game) I assumed that the umpire had been fooled. But Chisenhall doesn’t seem to even try the good old “shake your hand and yell OW!” routine to sell it, the body language looked like a guy who either thought he was out or that it was a ball.
Have to think that 9 times out of 10, even if the guy HAD been hit and had reacted that way, he would’ve been called out by the umpire, that’s just not how someone reacts when they get hit on the knuckle by a major league pitch.
Good for him for not flopping. Perhaps this is karma for all the times that Jeter hopped around like Johnny Knoxville on balls that hit his bat.
God, I remember that. So annoying. Let’s remember all the times he did that:
http://larrybrownsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/derek-jeter-hit.jpg
I was going to post more, but it turns out that all those other times I remember him doing it were actually just times I remember people whining about the same single play over and over for years for some strange reason.
OMG, I was just joking.
He actually did that ?!
What a phony !!
Oy.
“This is why you have replay, Joe”
– Jeffrey Maier
Joe Girardi with this and other moves with maybe one of the worst managing games in a while. Think he’s out of New York quite possibly with this game. If this was the Boss, he might not even manage game 3.
You think that this one game is going to define Girardi as the Yankees manager and everything he did before this was negated? Girardi will likely get a 3-4 year contract from the Yankees in the offseason.
a lot of times, that’s EXACTLY what happens. postseason games are magnified significantly. You might think it’s wrong, but that’s reality.
No in fact that almost never happens, it’s an outliner when it does, Grady Little is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. It’s almost comical to think that Girardi, a manager who just guided “the baby Yankees” into the post season and he is facing what might be the greatest pitching staff in history is not going to be resigned for a bad game, regardless of the timing. Managers generally get extensions when they guide a team to the playoffs. I promise you and any other Yankee fan, Girardi & Cashman will be back next year, 3 or 4 year contracts and that’s a good thing because why mess with what is clearly working great.
Further to the original point, managers don’t generally get fired for having a bad game, they get fired because of mutiny in FO or the club house towards the manager, Girardi appears to be universally respected if not liked. They also get fired due to losing when it’s not expected, which also isn’t the case here. Basically I can’t think of a single reason why Girardi wouldn’t be brought back.
well I saw that Chapman liked a tweet from someone suggesting that Girardi should lose his job. So I wouldn’t necessarily say that he’s universally respected…
And like a NY Daily News piece said- the Yankees may feel like they need a different manager to get this team to the next level..
If this was the Boss, Girardi would have no chance to save it unless they won the WS. Even without him, I think there’s a real chance he’s gone. Think the fact that his contract is up after this is important. If his contract had another 1-2 years left, different story.
Chapman will have no baring on the FO’s direction, he is not universally respected. I agree if this was The Bosses team from the 80’s and early 90’s he would likely be gone, but with all that turnover look how well that worked, the Yankees didn’t matter again until they got stability in the FO with Cashman and stability in the club house with Torre and later Girardi. If they let him walk I bet you at least 20 teams would consider a change in manager just because he’s available and the Yankees know it.
Think about the logic of saying that the World Series champion manager of the NYY would need to be replaced because of bad decision making during 1 game to “get them over the hump”. He hasn’t lost the club house, their are no scandals we know of, he’s accepting of analytical info, meshes well with ownership and FO, good with NY media, respected, good with both young and old, he also survived Jeter and Rodriguez among many other players of boundless ego. To imply that he should be replaced when he checks off literally every box to be a Yankee manager is just stupid.
To act like he’s got no chance of being replaced is a joke. Emotions have a funny way of forcing decisions to be made.
And you have to remember with the Yankees with the 90’s run. They replaced Buck Showalter after the 1995 season when they made the playoffs for the first time and lost in that great series with Seattle. And that series game 5 Showalter had a questionable call using Jack McDowell in relief in game 5… And this decision was far more egregious than that was.
Ok yes obviously the odds aren’t zero especially being as he has no contract past this year but if I were to bet on it I would put all my money on him returning. As for Buck he wasn’t replaced because of the playoff loss, he resigned because he wouldn’t sign a new 2 year contract in part because he refused to fire the hitting coach.
While Girardi is getting the blame, it’s odd that Sanchez seemed to know right away ( and Chiz too ), but the ump didn’t hesitate or question himself for a second.
Maybe these guys need to start referring to replay themselves a little more come the playoffs.
It’s also funny that to save 30 seconds on the challenge process, they ended up adding an extra hour and a half to the game. Ahh the irony.
Lol at a 30 second challenge process. Girardi fucked up huge, no other way to put it.
No doubt he did, but he really shouldn’t have had to be in that position to begin with. These umps need to just accept that some calls are too close for them to make.
Except the umpire didn’t for even a second seem to second doubt himself so his acceptance of some calls being to close wouldn’t have mattered in this instance. Even the replay close up that we are privy to isn’t conclusive and being as it has to be clear irrefutable evidence to over turn a call on the field, that call may not have been overturned at all (but I agree he should have challenged).
Hi – person with a rooting interest here. I think your take is sensible and rational if it aligns with what most people think, or I think its brave and bold if most people disagree. I’m not compromising my rationality, I’m declaring that it doesn’t exist.
Obviously Girardi should have challenged (he said later that he didn’t want to mess up his pitcher’s rhythm, which is a pretty lame reason under the circumstances) but if these pitchers are the best evidence and the umps doing the review are supposed to only change a call if it was clearly wrong, I kind of doubt they would have. It looked like the ball didn’t hit Chisenhall’s glove but I wouldn’t stake my life on it.
The bottom line is there was nothing to lose by challenging! He still had one challenge left, and was close to the point in the game where challenges are basically unlimited. This was as close to a freebie as you get in baseball. Though to be fair, if Girardi had challenged, and lost, and Lindor hit that HR, some fans would have complained that the two minute break affected Green so that he threw that HR pitch. Not many fans, though.
I also just learned that Girardi’s success rate on challenges overall is much greater than the average, which is about 50%. Of course, maybe is rate is so good because he leaves so many likely but not certain cases on the table.
Is this image altered? Watching the slow-motion video replays of the same angle, I don’t see the red glove moving like this GIF does. Also, Lonnie Chisenhall’s post-game interview awkwardness pretty much tells you all you need to know about whether he was truly hit (not that it matters at this point).
I would say in the gif in the article it’s completely inconclusive if it hit the glove. Lonnie probably wouldn’t even know himself if it hit grazed the glove
I’d agree the videos aren’t necessarily conclusive. It’s just that the GIF in the comment above looks like it’s showing fundamentally different glove movement that the true video doesn’t. I could be wrong.
It’s either altered or a very convenient compression glitch, either way I don’t think he got hit.
Back, and to the left. Back . . . and to the left. Back . . . and to the left.
For all the postgame commentary being how Girardi screwed up, there’s no way that should’ve been overturned if he HAD challenged. I mean t looks like it actually tipped off of Lonnie’s batting glove before it hit the end of the bat so if it had been reversed that would be the wrong call. And then if Lindor hit the grand slam, the narrative would be how Girardi iced Green with an unwinnable challenge.
“And as you probably know, these plays are reviewable. Seems like that should’ve come in handy for the Yankees.”
Couldn’t help yourself, huh?
The headline is or isn’t wrong. That sounds weird but if Chisenhall had been called out immediately it would have obviously been the case, but the way I read the rule it appears to say that if after review it is determined that the ball hit the bat instead of the hitter then Chisenhall would return to the plate with two strikes on him.
The headline is wrong or it isn’t. That sounds weird but if Chisenhall had been called out immediately it would have obviously been the case, but the way I read the rule it appears to say that if after review it is determined that the ball hit the bat instead of the hitter then Chisenhall would return to the plate with two strikes on him.
Wow…I think you may have caught something that I haven’t seen reported anywhere else. See Rule 5(G) in the replay review rules for HBPs (http://m.mlb.com/official_rules/replay_review). While the language in ‘Example 2’ is a little hard to follow at times, the text at the end seems pretty unambiguous: “if a ‘foul ball’ ruling would result in a third strike, the pitch would be replayed”. What other scenario would that example language have even been included to cover if not what happened in the game last night. (I guess it could be ambiguous in the context of a 2-strike bunt attempt that umpire incorrectly rules as a HBP…if the bunt lands foul anyway, there’d be no reason to replay the pitch.)
Regardless, good catch. Returning Chisenhall to a 2-strike count in that scenario would be a bizarre outcome, but seems to be what the Rules would mandate.
Evan Roberts, a NYC radio talk show host, had mentioned this very rule (in a tweet). But Bryan Hoch, the Yankees MLB.com writer tweeted this in response:
https://twitter.com/bryanhoch/status/916827728522948613
Confusing, but just to be sure, I checked with MLB. Had Girardi challenged, it would have been a strikeout.
The key is that MLB has distinct definitions of both “foul ball” and “foul tip.” Since Sanchez caught it, it is by definition a “foul tip” and not a “foul ball.”
With the money the Yankees have, they should be using the BEST replay technology available, dontcha think? Just saying……..
Hay, don’t trot out the Yanks replay team as an excuse. Someone noted that they led the league in calls overturned. Girardi alone should be saddled with spitting the bit on the challenge.
Just neighing.
How could Girardi possibly rationalize that he didn’t challenge the pitch because he didn’t want to upset Green’s rhythm? After all, later in the same game, he didn’t mind upsetting Chapman’s rhythm when he challenged the play at the photographer’s well.
Sometimes the coverup is more ridiculous than the crime.
I kind of doubt the outcome of the game would have been affected either way. The call on the field was hit, and people have since spent a ton of time trying to figure out conclusively one way or another – indicating it was likely not clear enough evidence to overturn the field call in just a minute or two.
That said, there is no way you don’t ask for the review because just maybe there is another angle out there you haven’t inspected fully which shows this clearer to them with their technology and expertise. You know its close no matter what so there is no harm in asking
We saw a replay request on the Gomes pick-off of second later in the game. That too looked like it was likely too close to call in the first I believe 3 angels they showed on TV …then we saw the super-slow-mo airing of the fourth angel though, at which time it became clear.
You only have about 30 seconds to make your request, maybe not enough time to find that. The umps have that time and the resources to do it though – have them do it just in case
Were any of those angels from the outfield? Because that probably would have been the most helpful.
Apparently retyped that 3rd paragraph way too quickly. Too late to edit for spelling now though, so oh well
Hehe, I know I’m being a jerk but it was just too good. Spell check shenanigans happen to the best of us
We can’t be 100.00% sure that it didn’t hit his glove first. The foul ball theory is just that: a theory. In much the same way gravity is a theory.
The umpire blew the call, and it ultimately cost the Yankees the game. Simple as that. Some of the commenters here act like it would kill them to admit that the Yankees aren’t always the team that benefits unfairly. “The Yankees are just as susceptible as any other team.” Feels soothing to say.
If the foul ball theory is as solid as the theory of gravity, then I’m pretty god damn confident it was a foul ball.
That was the joke lol.
Dumb ass.
One thing we’ve not talked about(at least don’t think we have). Should something like this be reviewed automatically challenge or no challenge? The umpire had to know it was close.
Please no. There are dozens of close calls in a typical game. Games need to speed up as it is, this would add another 30 minutes of standing around to each game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pG5-54wxnw
It certainly looks like Chisenhall admits that it hit the bat.