Upon further review, baseball’s new replay system needs some fine tuning.
The system failed in the eighth inning of the Yankees’ 7-4 win over the Red Sox Saturday at the Stadium. Replays clearly showed Yankees shortstop Dean Anna should have been ruled out at second base, but the umpires ruled him safe and credited him with a double, then the review by replay officials in Manhattan confirmed the call after Red Sox manager John Farrell challenged it.
Major League Baseball later admitted they made a mistake by upholding the call and said the conclusive angle on the play was not immediately available. Anna’s foot clearly came off the base while Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts still was applying his tag.
After the game, the Red Sox were steamed about the call.
“We had probably five angles that confirmed his foot was off the base,” Farrell said. “When the safe call came back it certainly raises questions on if they’re getting the same feed we are, the consistency of the system. It makes you scratch your head a little bit on why he was called safe.”
Baseball implemented the replay system this season, and there have not been too many controversial calls yet, but this one left some members of the Red Sox privately questioning the system.
Farrell said he was not given any explanation by the umpiring crew, which gets the decision from the replay center in Manhattan.
“You can’t question the call once it’s reviewed, so there was no follow-up,” Farrell said.
MLB officials originally said the review was inconclusive but later acknowledged they did not see the proper camera angle in time. It raises the question how replay officials don’t have access instantly to the same angles TV viewers see.
The one thing that saved MLB on this blown call is it ended up not impacting the game. The play occurred in the eighth inning with one out and the Yankees up 7-4. With Yangervis Solarte on first, Anna hit the ball to right field. Anna slid into second ahead of Bogaerts’ tag, but his foot then came off the bag as he stood up.
Instead of a man at third and two outs, it was runners at second and third and one out. But the Yankees couldn’t bring an extra insurance run home as Brett Gardner flied out to shallow center and Brian Roberts struck out swinging.
“We had him there,” Bogaerts said. “But it’s a new system. They’ve made most of the calls right. It’s definitely going to get better, but we had him there.
“If you look at the replay I’m on the guy for like a minute.”
Anna said he felt like he kept his foot on the bag the entire time, but he was shown a photo with his foot clearly off of it.
He smiled and said: “They said I was safe, so I’m safe. That’s it.’’
Additional reporting by Joel Sherman and Kevin Kernan