Blue Jays-Orioles baserunning 'controversy' is hardly that if you read MLB rules

The Toronto Blue Jays managed to take the rubber match of their three game series against the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday afternoon (Jun. 7) with a 6-4 victory. The AL East rivals are jockeying for positioning within that division making every meeting from this past weekend even more important. After getting whooped 13-3 on Friday, the Blue Jays bounced back to win the final two games, but the finale wasn't without some controversy.

During the bottom of the sixth, the Blue Jays began to rally from a 4-0 deficit. With runners on the corners and one out, catcher Brandon Valenzuela hit a ground ball to second base, which shortstop Gunner Henderson cut across the bag to glove and then proceeded to run toward potential future All-Star Ernie Clement, who was on first. Henderson looked at Clement, waved his glove at him, then threw the ball to first base to retire Valenzuela.

The Orioles thought they had just induced an inning-ending double play since they felt Clement had "left the basepath." But the play on the field, and the one that is established in the rule book, is that the actual base path is determined when the fielder attempts the tag on the runner. The umpires also felt that Henderson never actually attempted to tag Clement at all.

The play resulted in a RBI groundout for Valenzuela, which brought the Blue Jays to within two. The inning continued and Toronto tacked on three more runs to take a 5-4 lead over the Orioles. The entire play and ruling was expertly broken down by Blue Jays' play-by-play man Dan Shulman and colour analyst Caleb Joseph.

Clement did take some big steps to avoid the tag and even manager John Schneider said so after the game. He told reporters, "Ernie… I haven’t looked at it yet, maybe fortunate there. I think that the runner has three feet and Ernie’s good at disguising that sometimes, I guess.”

But with the way the rule is written down, Clement did exactly what he was within his rights to do. According to the MLB rule book, Any runner is out when:
(1)  He runs more than three feet away from his base path to avoid being tagged unless his action is to avoid interference with a fielder fielding a batted ball. A runner's base path is established when the tag attempt occurs and is a straight line from the runner to the base he is attempting to reach safely;

Orioles Manager Craig Albernaz told reporters after the game that the explanation he recieved was that the runner established his running path while Gunnar fielded and attempted the tag, and he didn’t leave the path buffer. And the ump said “Gunnar’s tag attempt wasn’t a good enough attempt.”

Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt further explained the first part of the rule in which Clement was trying to avoid interference. Wendelstedt spoke to Mitch Bannon of the Athletic and said, "It was actually a very gentlemanly thing to do. He was getting out of the way to allow the fielder to make a play towards 1st base. It just so happened they tried to spin it to get two.”

Blue Jays capitalize on Orioles miscue

The thing the Orioles should really be concentrating on is the fact that even though this play didn't end the inning, they still had a two run lead on the Blue Jays with two out and a runner on second base. The Blue Jays have been notoriously bad at cashing in with runners in scoring position this season. But the Orioles allowed themselves to be completely flummoxed by this play that it resulted in their demise the rest of the way.

The Blue Jays then added some insurance when Valenzuela was at the centre of another big moment. But instead of a hitting into a play that sparked controversy, he hit into a play that sparked some fireworks (or would have it Rogers Centre set off fireworks on home runs). Valenzuela launched a blast over the Orioles bullpen, and trotted around the bases (staying on the base path) to give Toronto a 6-4 lead.

There's no telling how the outcome of the game would have been changed had Clement been called out on that play in the sixth, but for the Blue Jays, who haven't had any luck roll their way this season, may have finally gotten the break they needed.

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