In the seventh inning of the Los Angeles Angels' 6-5 road victory over the Houston Astros on Thursday evening, L.A. manager Mike Scioscia came out to argue a potential botched call by the umpires with regard to a pitching rule.
As it turns out, Scioscia was correct. Major League Baseball confirmed that umpires working the game allowed the Astros' illegal pitching change, per Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal:
The development was broken down nicely by Zach Stoloff of NESN.com. It all began when Wesley Wright was brought on the bump in the top of the inning for the Astros to pitch to Angels outfielder J.B. Shuck.
However, Scioscia responded by inserting Luis Jimenez as a pinch hitter. Before Wright threw an official pitch, he was relieved by Hector Ambriz from the bullpen, which isn't allowed under rule 3.05 (b) in the official MLB rulebook.
The rule essentially states that a pitcher must throw to at least one hitter before leaving the bump, and that clearly didn't happen in this instance. Even with three different huddles among the contingent of blues, they couldn't reach the proper verdict.
Making matters worse for the home team was that Houston manager Bo Porter believed after the game that he did not make a wrong move, per Stoloff. That brings to mind when former Philadelphia Eagles QB Donovan McNabb didn't know the rules of NFL overtime.
Maybe there's a reason the Astros are already firmly entrenched in last place in their new American League West division.
Clearly, though, the umpires didn't quite grasp the rule's concepts and referred their questions to the league office after the game.
The controversy on the mound piled even more time onto the marathon nine-inning contest, which took a whopping four hours and seven minutes, according to CBS Sports. It was the longest regular-length contest of the 2013 MLB season thus far.
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