The Braves' Adam Duvall was called out on a home run after umpire's weird blunder
Braves outfielder Adam Duvall has quietly been having one of the best offensive seasons in baseball. He leads the National League with 109 RBI. He’s second with 37 home runs. And he’s one of the main reasons that the Braves have been able to stay in first place despite a season-ending injury to Ronald Acuña Jr.
But he absolutely deserved to finish Wednesday’s game with an extra home run and RBI to his name. He has umpires Sam Holbrook and Mike Muchlinski to blame for that.
In the first inning at Chase Field, Duvall drove a fly ball to deep center field that cleared the fence after bouncing off Diamondbacks outfielder Jake McCarthy’s glove. It should have been a home run. Yet, confusion from the umpiring crew had the Braves in disarray on the base path.
This was weird but Adam Duvall did just hit another home run. pic.twitter.com/SH9UFyvrPH
— Bally Sports: Braves (@BravesOnBally) September 23, 2021
Neither Holbrook (the crew chief) nor Muchlinski at second base made a ruling on the play, which had Austin Riley thinking the ball was caught. As Riley went back to first to tag, he let the confused Duvall pass him on the base path. That mishap took away Duvall’s home run.
Adam Duvall hit a baseball over the fence and gets rewarded with a two-run single pic.twitter.com/lSmY0HVGNS
— Bally Sports: Braves (@BravesOnBally) September 23, 2021
This brought the rarely seen MLB Rule 5.09(b)(9) into play, which determines that the runner is out when he passes a preceding runner. Because Duvall ended up in front of Riley, Duvall was called out while Riley and Freddie Freeman were able to score. It was ruled a two-run single for Duvall with an out on the base path instead of a three-run home run.
Baseball is weird like that.
Still, all that confusion really fell on the umpires. In that situation, you’d like to see the crew briefly call the play dead to determine what happened (and get the call right) rather than punish a team for reacting to a no-call. Had they called it a home run from the start, Riley wouldn’t have retreated to first, and Duvall wouldn’t have passed him.
The Braves can laugh about it, though, because the call didn’t impact the game. Atlanta went on to win, 9-2.