It seems the Pirates’ wacky season-opening series in Detroit still hasn’t stopped being wacky.
Ron Gardenhire, the Tigers’ manager, told reporters this morning at Comerica Park that his team had communicated over the weekend with Major League Baseball about the replay overturn last Friday that stripped his side of the winning run in the 10th inning, allowing the Pirates to eventually prevail, 13-10, in the 13th. And Gardenhire sure made it sound on this occasion as if league officials sympathized with at least part of his point of view in having hotly disputed the overturn.
“We had our conversation with them, yes,” Gardenhire said in replying to a reporter’s question Monday. “There were definitely mistakes made.”
He wasn’t referring to whether or not Francisco Cervelli tagged Detroit’s baserunner, Nicholas Castellanos …
… just as he insisted that wasn’t why he argued so passionately after the overturn. Rather, he apparently was livid that the review process took three minutes, 40 seconds. Baseball’s review regulations state that the replay official should make a decision within two minutes, but additionally states that extra time can be taken if “the replay director reasonably believes that granting additional time to the replay official is more likely to result in an incorrect call being overturned.”
“The time of it was definitely wrong,” Gardenhire continued. “I mean, it’s supposed to be a two-minute ordeal, or we move on, right? And they ended up going almost four. And they’re looking for a needle in a haystack now. … We heard what we wanted to hear. I would tell you that. I’m not going to say anything else other than that. They told us what we knew was right.”
Or maybe there was a misunderstanding. Because later today, MLB issued a statement attempting to clarify the conversation the Tigers — presumably general manager Al Avila — had with league officials.
“The nature of the exchange with the Tigers was that the replay officials made the correct call based on conclusive evidence,” the MLB statement said. “The video clearly shows the catcher applying the tag on the upper right arm of the runner.”
Crazy, right?
No crazier, of course, than the sight of Gardenhire bursting from the Detroit dugout to argue with the home plate umpire, Tony Randazzo, after Randazzo had been the one who called Castellanos safe. Arguing after a replay results in an automatic ejection, so Randazzo tossed Gardenhire for … uh, agreeing with him?
Not quite.
“As Clint Hurdle said, from what I heard, I’m arguing with the guy that called him safe. That’s a great way to put it,” Gardenhire joked today. “I wasn’t arguing that, though. I was arguing about the time.”
The Pirates swept that series. This would appear to close the book on that.
