Indians score two runs on foul ball due to umpire's blown call

Well, this isn’t how baseball works:

@Indians score two runs on foul ball due to umpire's blown call. #MLB #clevelandindians #houston #Astros @BIGLON8 https://t.co/FEgG1v44WA
— usa sports (@UsasportsOvh) September 8, 2016

In the third inning of the Indians-Astros game on Thursday, with both clubs firmly in the postseason hunt this September, Indians batter Lonnie Chisenhall tried to check his swing on a ball in the dirt with the bases loaded and wound up smacking the pitch foul. But home-plate umpire Jim Joyce apparently both missed the sound of the bat hitting the ball and failed to notice from the angle it ricocheted that it probably didn’t simply hit the ground.

Joyce let the play continue, but Astros catcher Jason Castro wasn’t having it. Castro got up and removed his mask to argue with Joyce as two Indians baserunners came around to score and Jose Ramirez wound up on third base. The play is not reviewable, but afterward Joyce sent Jose Ramirez back to second base — which really makes no sense whatsoever under the rules of baseball. Either Joyce screwed it up and none of the runs score or Castro screwed it up and all of them do. It looks like Joyce called a timeout with the ball in foul ground, which might account for his sending Ramirez back to second but also isn’t really how baseball’s supposed to work.

It’s terrible luck for the Astros and it’s an embarrassing gaffe for Joyce — best known for once blowing a call that cost Tigers starter Armando Galarraga a perfect game — and Major League Baseball, but that’s really all it is. Fans decrying the state of umpiring in the game today do so mostly because yesterday’s game lacked the high-definition slow-motion replay that now exposes so many bad calls, and Joyce maintains a pretty good reputation among players despite his notable mistakes. And making more plays reviewable will only lead to more of the long, boring replay reviews that hamper baseball in 2016.

Umpiring is hard, is the thing. Joyce blew a call, and in this case it cost the Astros two runs in a game with postseason implication. That stinks, but it’s not really grounds for an overhaul of the league’s replay system or umpiring ranks. This has been a very cold take, but you’ll just have to deal with it.

(An earlier version of this story noted that Ramirez crossed home on the plate and was sent back to third base. He crossed third and was sent back to second.)