 This breakdown is brought to you by DraftKings. It's another play at the plate, blocking the plate. We're gonna have a lot of these, we always have a lot of these, they're never fun because no one really knows what's going on. That plate wasn't blocked and that is the tying run. They're excited about it. Now the go ahead run is on second base and all of Chicago, well not Cubs fans, but White Sox fans are clapping with anticipation, strike, sinker, two outs in the eighth inning, slider goes the other way, puts it into left field, they come up throwing the play at the plate, out was running in quicksand at the end, it looked like punched out, Ump loves his call, says, hey, why don't you go check that? No, no need, you were dead dude, you were out. Look at this perfect, beautiful flowing throw. All right, let's take a look at the rule because this is where it always gets confusing. A catcher should not be deemed to have violated the blocking the plate rule unless he has both blocked the plate without possession of the ball or when not in a legitimate attempt to field the throw. So let's take a look at that first. Okay, without possession of the ball, he's doing great. He's set up off the plate, he's giving the runner that outside lane. Now the bat from the hitter is in his way. He's gonna slide into that and that kind of sucks. But as the ball is coming towards him, he realizes, oh, I have to move myself to make a play on this ball. So the first question the umpires have to ask is, is this a legitimate move to catch this ball? He moves to the inside, his foot does land on the plate. They could have a problem with that, but their question is, did he have to shift to make the catcher to play that ball? I think the answer that we would all say is yes. Now his foot is on the plate, is he supposed to be perfectly off the plate or just once he's making an attempt to move towards the ball, he's allowed to block it. That's kind of how I interpret it, right? Or when not in a legitimate attempt to field the throw. Well, he's in a legitimate attempt to field the throw. So that would mean that he can kind of block the plate or be in the lane. So we're good there. Now the next interpretation we have to look at is a catcher shall not be deemed to have violated rule six. If he has hindered or impeded the progress of the runner attempting to score, a catcher shall not be deemed to have hindered or impeded the progress of the runner if in the judgment of the umpire, which is always funny when they say that because all of their decisions are basically judgment decisions, that's their job. The runner would have been called out notwithstanding the catcher having blocked the plate. So if he's 20 steps away and the runner's gonna be out no matter what, then this doesn't matter. But on this play, what they're looking at here is, did the runner change his course of action because the catcher slid over? So was the runner aiming for that outside lane and then this last step, he had to really move and come inside. And if he didn't have to do that, if he didn't have to change his path at the very end to dive inside and could have stayed in his natural lane, would he have beat the throw? I guess that's what they have to look at. I'm not advocating for this rule. I'm just trying my hardest to understand what they could be looking at and determining. And if they're saying that as he's running down and right here when the catcher moves, he then has to slide inside. You see that? So when the catcher moves his feet to the right, the batter moves his feet to the left. Right? So that could be where they're saying catcher shall not be deemed to have hindered or impeded the progress of the runner. Now when he does this move and the catcher moves and then he moves to the left, did that impede the progress of the runner? If he did not have to do that, would he have been safe? I think maybe that's what they're looking at. That in their judgment, he would have been safe if he kept that outside lane and would have beaten the ball and had not slowed down his running path. I have no idea. I'm trying to get in the brains of this umpire up in the booth who calls down and everyone's waiting and anticipating and he does call down and they do say after review, the call in the field is overturned, the catcher blocked the plate, they score and that's the lead in the game. And Andruz is a hero and Bochie's like, what are you talking about? Fucking shitting me? I invented this rule because my catcher got hurt and we didn't like it. That's not what it was. He walks out, waddles out. What was the call? Trying to figure it out. You can't argue at all. So he gets ejected and then he's gonna have a nice like, oh, I understand. It's not your call. I get it, but I'm just saying that's bullshit. And who made the call on that play? Huh? I wanna find him. I'd like to talk to him. Can you tell me who the umpires in the booth are? Home plate, I'm just not even looking at him. The catcher walks up to the home plate. I'm just like, what did I do wrong? You and I will look at it. We'll talk about it tomorrow. I don't know. I don't know. I thought you had it. I called him out. So I don't know what they're seeing. So he's like, all right, you and I, we'll talk about it tomorrow and we'll figure it out. And he's like, huh, all right, I guess so. Now, the next game, I'm guessing maybe they had a chat. Maybe they didn't, but Heim comes up with two on, two outs, two strikes, two run lead, takes that inside fastball and says, see you later. Home run as he rounds first base says, we'd like a review. We'd like a review. Can you review that? I don't know if that actually got out much to the enjoyment of his pitchers. You can see, he says, he called for a review and he says right now, he says, yeah, he just did it. Called for a review and they're like, oh, that devilish guy, our catcher. So that's what happened. This one was brought to you by DraftKings. Thank you to DraftKings. I appreciate you guys and I appreciate everyone else for watching and enjoying it. And yeah, that's a, it's a crazy rule. I tried my best to get into the head of the umpires to see what they could be looking at. I disagree with the call.