Here’s the very first play — in fact, on just the second pitch — of last Tuesday’s Cubs/Dodgers game at Wrigley Field.
At the time of the play, this was ruled an error on Gage Workman. Workman is now a member of the White Sox after the Cubs DFA’d him the next day following that error.
Shōta Imanaga then retired Mookie Betts and after a single by Teoscar Hernandez, struck out Freddie Freeman.
Tommy Edman then homered to give the Dodgers a 3-0 lead. Of course, you know the Cubs followed with a five-run first and eventually won the game 11-10 in 10 innings.
On Thursday, that error was changed to a hit:
The ball does indeed have some spin on it, but I think a competent MLB third baseman makes that play and throws Ohtani out.
In the end, of course, the Cubs won the game. But because of the scoring change, the three runs in the first inning off Imanaga were changed from unearned to earned. So instead of only two earned runs off Imanaga, all five runs the Dodgers scored off him last Tuesday are now in the books as earned. That raised Imanaga’s season ERA to date from 2.38 to 3.18.
I’m guessing the Dodgers complained about the error called and asked for the ruling to be changed. So Ohtani gets another hit and Imanaga takes the ERA hit as a result. Ohtani’s BA would be .276 if not for the error. Instead it’s .286.
Obviously those numbers are skewed a bit because it’s this early in the season.
As most of you know, I have been an official scorer (for a minor-league game). That’s an error, and I have absolutely no doubt about that call.
Perhaps you disagree. Again, in the end this didn’t really matter except for two players’ stat lines. But MLB should have got this one right.
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