It’s not every game you see a player go into celebration mode after a throw beat him by 20 feet, but Oscar Mercado had reason to be excited.
The Cleveland Indians defeated the Boston Red Sox, 7-5, on Sunday in a wild game that saw Cleveland rally back from a four-run deficit. But it was that go-ahead run that had the baseball world talking.
With the score tied and two outs in the eighth (and Mercado on first), pinch hitter Yu Chang ripped a double down the third-base line. Mercado was thinking home the moment the ball cleared the infield, but if you weren’t paying attention to what unfolded on the base path, you’d think the Red Sox got Mercado out at home by a mile.
Not exactly …
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!? 🙌🙌🙌🙌#OURCLE pic.twitter.com/9kE71NAqt5
— Bally Sports Cleveland (@BallySportsCLE) August 29, 2021
Replays would show that Red Sox second baseman Yairo Munoz obstructed Mercado on the base path. And on top of that, Austin Davis nearly got in Mercado’s way at third base — the two narrowly avoided a collision.
Here’s a view at the obstruction. Plus, a shove mid-run from Mercado.
E4 • This is crazy
The Red Sox interfere with the runner (almost twice) and the Indians come back to take the lead with a three-run 8th inning pic.twitter.com/7VSLqQ2CxB
— MLB Errors (@mlberrors) August 29, 2021
The Red Sox broadcast was ready to go into a meltdown over the call, but once they saw Munoz in the way, they even conceded the ruling was correct.
Here’s the Red Sox broadcast on the interference call
— Dillard Barnhart (@BarnHasSpoken2) August 29, 2021
“Oh, there it was.”
We’re so conditioned to seeing umpires miss these types of calls, but I must say that home plate umpire Nic Lentz was all over it there. Nice job.
