Sam Holbrook may have had the right idea, but it just didn’t do him any good.
In the first inning of Friday’s Blue Jays-Red Sox game, Edwin Encarnacion hit a grounder to third with Colby Rasmus on third base. Will Middlebrooks decided to throw home to try to retire Rasmus on the play, and though the throw was late, it looked like Kelly Shoppach successful blocked a sliding Rasmus from reaching the plate.
Holbrook, though, was positioned behind the play and had no way of telling whether Rasmus was able to swipe the plate with his hand. Screened off, Holbrook did the only thing he could think of; he went to check the dirt in front of the plate to see try to ascertain whether Rasmus touched home plate.
From the swipe mark in the clay, Holbrook decided that, yes, Rasmus touched home plate. Replay, though, made it pretty clear that what he really touched was Shoppach’s shin guard.
I don’t blame Holbrook here. Like pretty much every home plate umpire in every major league game, he’s in an awful position to try to make that call, and given his view, he made the best judgment he could. If only he or someone else could have gone to the cameras instead, it would have been case closed.
