Its 748am and Yuli still hasn't touched the plate. As others have said blocking the plate without the ball had to have been the call.
Which Fisher are you talking about? Derek Fisher, while still not a sure thing, has appeared to have learned to hit high fastballs and cut hits Ks by 33%.
If we win today, the Astros will set a franchise record for most wins to start a season through 66 games.
Wasn't the call on the field, ump was pointing at the ground indicating the dropped ball. Here's Yuli with the sliding mitt on the plate while the catcher is showing ump the ball: I think if Yuli had been tagged out he would have been ruled safe on review, catcher was clearly blocking the plate too early. It was a quick review, quicker that we've seen for much more obvious and less important calls. Regardless, MLB does a horrible job explaining replay situations. They just don't do it. You can have a stadium full of people, 4 broadcast crews with however many fans watching at home and nobody knows what the umps' video review indicated. Contrast that with how the NFL does it.
I've suggested this in the past for another starter (McHugh maybe), jokingly, but have him pitch a full speed simulated inning in the bullpen right before the game starts. There's no way to do that correctly though, you'd need to use the field. Pretty sure Cole would go ****ing ballistic if you suggested using an opener for him. In a perfect theoretical world it might be a good idea.
Not sure I totally agree with him about the catcher, he is allowed to make every reasonable effort to get in position to field the throw, dunno if he's allowed to drop his knee into a sliding runner's face to do it. I am pretty sure though that in that situation, if Yuli had not already begun his slide, he could have legally gone through the catcher to get to the plate. Weird play all around, would love to hear the official explanation (haha).
Tell him, then lock him in a cage like a bull and rider about to released. Open cage at beginning of 2nd inning. Stand back. Maybe put some clown makeup on Tyler White as a safety measure.
Ok, that really did clear up everything. Catcher wasn't actually blocking the plate, but had to move into Yuli's lane at the last second to catch the ball. Yuli does manage to get his mitt in there underneath the catcher who recovers the ball but doesn't tag him. Maybe those diving mitts need to be bright orange like an airplane black box or Chirinos' fingernails for better visability. Honestly, the clip is worth watching just to see Pedro Martinez stroking a stuffed cat in his lap the whole time.
Seems like there is so much rule ambiguity/rule enforcement ambiguity surrounding plays at the plate... like... the runner has to have a lane to try and touch the plate... you can’t have catchers completely block someone from touching it.. doesn’t seem right... but you see stuff like last night on a regular basis
