In last night's 9-7 loss against the Toronto Blue Jays, replacement umpire Clint Fagan quite possibly gave two runs to the Blue Jays. With the bases juiced in the third inning, Jarrod Saltalamacchia attempted to pick off Jose Bautista with a snap throw to first base. Salty had a good chance to get him at first but his elbow caught Fagan's mask and the ball ended up in right field scoring two runs on the supposed error.According to the MLB rule book, Rule 5.09 (b) states that runner may not advance when the plate umpire interferes with the catcher’s throw. In which case those two runs come off the scoreboard and this game looks a bit different. Fagan's no call is one issue, the other being Saltalamacchia not immediately protesting once contact was made and making his argument to have that dead ball called. After the game Salty said similar plays have happened with him in the past attempting to throw out a runner and making contact with the umpire, but no call was made which is why he did not know about that dead ball rule. Regardless if he knew that ruling or not, once contact was made with the ump and the ball sailed into right field I would have liked to see a little fire from Salty at least turning and blaming Fagan for the error. Still not sure who I'm more upset with Fagan or Salty. What do you think, who's at fault here?
