Bruce Bochy was ejected from Tuesday night’s 7-6 loss by his Texas Rangers against the Chicago White Sox for protesting a call that was overturned.
Elvis Andrus was on second for the White Sox after knocking in two runs with a single to tie the game in the bottom of the eighth. Zach Remillard was batting with two outs and roped a line drive to left off reliever Grant Anderson. Travis Jankowski fielded the ball and threw a one-hopper home to Jonah Heim, who tagged out Andrus to end the inning.
Or so the Rangers thought.
There was one big problem: The White Sox challenged the play and won. The review determined that Heim had blocked the plate and did not give Andrus a lane to slide in. Bochy was tossed after coming out to protest the call being overturned.
After the game, Bochy said he was “dumbfounded” by the call.
The call was the difference in the game since no other runs were scored.
Bochy should be intimately familiar with the rule considering it was his catcher in San Francisco who was injured while blocking the plate in 2011, leading to the new Buster Posey-inspired rule being implemented in 2014. Now the rule has come back to bite Bochy in a way he did not appreciate.
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