 We had one of the odd or double plays of the season last night, A's versus Rangers. The A's are up by one. There's a runner on first. The A's just went to their bullpen because their starting pitcher J.P. Sears had a no-hitter through six. Gave up his first hit, runner on first. Let's go to the bullpen. Let's not have this unravel on us. This breakdown is brought to you by JMBaseball, the YouTube channel. Anyway, here's what happens. Well, first, I think they might have been stealing on this 2-1 pitch, but it hits the batter. If Garcia was stealing, he would have went to third. It would have been a runner on third with one out and a 3-1 count. Instead, it's two runners on base, and all the force plays are still in order, and the umpire gives a signal. This signal, the double what up, and that means infield fly situation, guys. Be alert. So the next batter, we got little breaking ball, strike one, that one, called a ball, one and one. Next one below the zone, two and one, and then right in there again, the 2-2 pitch is popped up shallow. Is it gonna be caught? No, it's gonna be dropped, but the runners didn't run because they thought it was gonna be caught, and now we have the easy force out at third, and the easy force out at second, and the A's escape all trouble because of that. Fuck yeah, baby! Woo! Let's go! And never a fucking doubt! Oh my goodness. They didn't call infield fly, huh? No, boo, they did not. So if you're wondering, if you're new to baseball, you don't watch a lot, you're like, what's going on? That seems like a loophole. The fielder can just drop it on purpose and get those outs, because the runners can't run until he catches it if it's caught. Yeah, there's a rule that stops that. It's called the infield fly rule. And the rule says that with less than two outs, with runners on first and second, the infield fly is in play, and if it's a ball hit to an infielder that takes ordinary effort, the batter is automatically out. Now you can see this umpire, he does start to call infield fly. Watch this, his hand is going up right here to signal infield fly, and then he sees the effort, judges that it was not ordinary, and says, nah, nevermind, nevermind, nevermind. Safe. So what's this ordinary effort? The ball lands in between the pitcher and second baseman. Pitchers don't make this play, they don't run backwards down the hill and make the play with ordinary effort. Should they? Yes. Do they? No. Ask any position player you know and they'll tell you pitchers aren't athletes. Anyway, the second baseman was playing pretty deep and he's got a slide to leave his feet to make the catch. So that's deemed not ordinary. Usually it's when the fielder is camped under it and they have a couple seconds and that's when the umpire will say he's camped under it infield fly. This ball has never hit high enough for him to be camped under it. Should he have made the catch? Yes. Did he drop it on purpose to get the double play? I don't think so. If he did, that's a really smart move. I, in my opinion, I kind of think they got this call right. I don't think that was ordinary effort but I understand that if you are a Rangers fan you're going to have the opposite opinion because that's how being a fan and bias works but let me know what you got if you're not a Rangers fan and not a A's fan. I want to know what you think. And also if you enjoy baseball and baseball trivia and baseball game shows and daily baseball coverage, JMBaseball, the YouTube channel recaps everything going on with baseball today and every day puts out a baseball trivia or baseball game show style game. It's a lot of fun. Go check it out. JMBaseball, YouTube channel.