Umpires don't call infield fly and A's turn bizarre double play, a breakdown 

I mean considering this is the A's, that probably was an extra-ordinary effort by everyone

AND NEVER A FUCKING DOUBT absolutely killed me lmfaoooooo

I'm okay with it. I think he tried to catch it. He just an Oakland A

Love this channel because I learned two things from this video: 1. How the infield fly rule works 2. Pitchers aren't athletes.

"Never a fucking doubt" Bro, your guy dropped the catch...

Isn't it a bit unfair to the runners? They don't have time to react to the umps decision making and if an ump decides not ordinary, it's free outs to the defending side in this situation

This is as close as I’ve seen. It’s interesting because it’s an easy double play if he doesn’t get a glove on it either.

You've gotta review Angel Hernandez ringing up Langford with the bases loaded tonight!! He just decided Langford was going to strikeout

"And never a fukking doubt!" Weird thing to say. I took a full shower in doubt when the ball rolled out of his glove

“Letth go” 🤣🤣🤣🤣

The pitcher was perfectly capable of making that play with ordinary effort. The pitcher choosing not to field his position is what forced the extra-ordinary effort from the 2nd baseman. This should have been infield fly. i'm pretty surprised Jim agrees with the call.

Not a Rangers or A's fan, and I disagree with the call. The pitcher could have jogged over and caught it, and the 1B could have caught it with ordinary effort if the 2B hadn't charged in at full steam. It's simply not fair to the runners to cancel your IFR call as the ball hits the ground, rewarding the defense with an extra out for defending a pretty routine pop-up poorly.

The problem with waiting for the ball to basically be on the ground to make that decision, is that you have basically defeated the whole purpose to begin with. No runner is ever going to dare to run on that. You either need to make the judgement call sooner as the ump, or any reasonably catchable infield ball needs to be an automatic out.

I think because the infield fly rule (ifr) exists you have to call it there. Not calling it here poses a “continuity” error where the runners are assuming it’ll be called and play accordingly. Likewise the fielders probably also assumed it would be called and just enjoyed the happy accident. Not calling it poses questioning and doubts into existing rules, gotta call it for consistency sake. Twins fan btw

This could set a precedent for infield players to just wait and hustle at the last minute, knowing itll look like real effort when they intentionally drop it. I agree that it looks like genuine effort, but it should still be an out by rule. Otherwise it just opens a new loophole

The pitcher is a defensive player and he had to walk like 3 steps to get to the ball. The rules shouldn't account for a position's laziness, it should treat them all the same.

"And never a f*king doubt!" would've been an all-time sports line if this had been the playoffs

This seems very unfair to the baserunners who have to stay near to their bases in case this catch is made to avoid a double play, especially when the umpire signals that it is not an infield fly only after the ball has already hit the ground and is in the pitcher's glove.

Now do the infamous Braves Infield fly: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-X-6ujbLknUc.htmlsi=ZukAVZCRUDBIv0bo

Good breakdown and good work

Royals fan here, I’m sad it wasn’t scored as an Error to be honest, I doubt there have been too many E 6 5 4 double plays ever recorded.

I love it! New to your channel...good job good man

The problem with the "ordinary effort" part of the IFR is that the umps cannot evaluate the effort until the play is over, but the IFR really needs to be called the instant that the ball is hit. Otherwise the runners have no idea what to do. This plays shows that the IFR should be reformulated to apply when there is ANY infield fly, force outs, and less than 2 outs.

Runner on 1st and 2nd or Bases Loaded with less than 2 outs (Jomboy never mentioned bases loaded part) OR an easier way to say it: "Force at 3rd with less than 2 outs" Much less of a mouth full.

I mean just because the 2nd baseman made it much harder than it needed to be shouldn't qualify it as extraordinary effort. Sure, pitchers don't make those plays almost ever but they absolutely COULD which to me means it should be infield fly. Not to mention the 1st baseman had to back off because the 2nd baseman was rushing in which means it was also easier for the 1st baseman as well. The infield fly is supposed to protect situations EXACTLY like this, it feels weird that a team was rewarded for bad fielding also.

If you were a pitcher growing up... You were taught to catch that ball unless called off. It was about three steps over...

The runners were basically screwed over. I never understand why pitchers are completely inept to catch a fly ball. You’re in the f’in major leagues.

Quick numbers estimations on this. The ball was in the air for 4 seconds. It landed about 15 feet from where the pitcher was standing. 15÷4=3.75. So the pitcher needed to move 3.75 feet per second to be where it landed when it landed. 3.75 feet per second = 2.55 miles per hour. The average human walking speed is between 3 and 4 miles per hour. So the pitcher had to function at the level of an octogenarian with a bad back to make this catch, sounds like well below ordinary effort to me

Well I appreciate the Jomboy breakdown cause I was listening on the radio and everyone sounded confused AF.

A rule that requires an umpire to determine a players "level of effort" to decide whether 1 out could turn into 2 us pretty dumb. Infield Flys should just be automatic batter out...

Having to wait until the ball is already caught or not really defeats the whole purpose of the rule. Yeah, it maybe doesn't meet the criteria of the rule, but that's got to be called WAY earlier

The rule does not a) exclude pitchers, or b) specify *who* should catch the ball. It very simply states ordinary effort vs extraordinary effort. If this is the correct call, teams should just have the infielder the ball is hit toward ignore the ball anf have another race over to to dive and miss it. That's the precedent you set by calling this interpretation correct.

thats baseball baby!! good call on the field

This is kind of silly. The baserunners can't react to a real-time signal from the ump! All fly balls in the entire infield should just be an out, imo.

Completely disagree.... You can't just pretend the pticher couldn't have easily caught that. Its essentially penalizing the Rangers because the pitcher decided to not participate in a routine play. Its a difficult play for the second baseman because it isnt his play.

That absolutely has to be an infield fly. A pitcher making "ordinary effort" there as a fielder absolutely gets to it easily and the runners have to expect that. Allowing pitchers to loaf when applying this rule opens a giant loophole on any pop-up around the mound. The "ordinary effort" rule is there so stuff like potential diving catches on line drives aren't called infield flies, this is clearly not what it was meant for.

Very interesting, thanks ...

Good call, great breakdown

Time to change/simplify the rule.

I was an umpire for years. That was a bad call.

Well explained!!!

Please for the love of baseball Gods, do the Angel Hernandez game last night. He had an epic performance 😂

Jomboy looks like Shea Langeliers 🤣

Sucks to be the runner in that situation having to guess how the umpire will look at it.

Extraordinary effort on this breakdown, as always (don’t think about it)

@Jomboy Media you gotta do the Wyatt Langford at-bat where Angel Hernandez was behind the plate...

I am unaffiliated with the two teams, but as a Braves fan I think that the inconsistency in how the IFR is applied is galling. Some umps call it immediately, some umps wait until after the play is made, some umps will call it 30 yards in the outfield in a wildcard match and torpedo a whole season. The "normal effort" verbiage makes the application of the rule far too subjective.

I'm an A's fan and I though this should have been an infield fly rule when I saw it. Then, when Jomboy read the rule I thought, rules as written, yeah, that's not an infield fly, but rules as intended that is completely an infield fly. The rules should be rewritten to reflect that.

"Should they, yes. Do they, no". hahahaha

I feel like the way this was called it leaves it open for teams to play their infielders deep as possible or tell their infielders not to run as quickly and then it's always a judgement call on effort and the infielders have a big advantage on creating double and triple plays. I'm not particularly a fan of baseball, just when it's covered by Jomboy Media, but I don't like this call.

I mean, I don't care whether they got the call technically right. As someone who doesn't care about any team in particular, and just learned about the infield fly rule from this video, this sounds like the specific situation that the rule was made to address: you don't want catching the pop fly to be categorically worse for them than dropping it.

So the runners should have ran regardless if it is caught, is that how they should have played that? I disagree with the ruling that occurred

“Cuz that’s how being a fan and bias works” I swear Jimmy is just so naturally funny

This brings back old interview with Astros player turned commentator some said he was professional athlete and he quickly answered in the negative. He said I'm a baseball player who plays first base can't be considered an athlete.

For those of us who are clueless, this is why I am subscribed & here. I had no idea. Thanks!

I think the call should’ve been made immediately otherwise the runner has to hold up

As a moderately casual baseball fan, I always thought the infield fly rule was stupid, because I never knew why it was a rule, but hearing the explanation here, I realize that it actually makes sense. I also did not realize that difficulty played a role in the call so I was confused when I saw this play. Thanks for the informative video

Sox fan. Perfect analysis. Sucks for Rangers, but that's baseball. Pitcher made great pitch, and this is the odd result

@JomboyMedia. How about a breakdown of the 2012 NL wildcard game "infield fly" call that landed in the outfield. The shortstop was about to be camped under the ball then moved away at the last second bc he heard/noticed the left fielder coming and then the ball dropped 10 ft away from either defender. Would have been bases loaded, but Holbrook called the infield fly

These plays should take the pitcher into account, and on those grounds I disagree with the call.

Ok I am a Rangers fan and I get what was called and why it was called, but I think it's bullcrap a pitcher isn't counted as an infielder for this purpose. He's not an athlete? Tough, maybe spend a half hour a day practicing catching fly balls for these situations. Greg Maddux was the best pitcher of his era and the best fielding pitcher possibly of all time, so there's no excuse. Should have been infield fly, because that was the easiest of ordinary effort for the pitcher.

I was not aware baseball had a variant of the Fair Catch rule. Are there examples where an infield fly rule was called then the ball was dropped? what happens?

“The double whaddup” lmao never heard of that way

When I was still an A's fan seeing a Jomboy breakdown was always so rare and exciting. Now this just make me sad. Funny play though

So what if an infielder just runs to the ball a little slower than normal or does an exaggerated dive or fall to "sell" the difficultly of the catch? Then the infield fly rule isn't in effect? Is that enough to make it appear to be an extraordinary effort? I don't think it should be "he was camped under it" but more "he SHOULD be camped under it". If the player has to make it look easy for the rule that hurts his team to be in effect then why would he give any effort to make it look easy?

Hey guy I don’t know how long you’ve been doing this kind of commentary but me personally I fukn love it , and am your new fanatic

the spirit of the Infield Fly Rule was violated here

As an umpire for high school baseball and softball the last 20 years here’s the key. Ordinary routine effort. Running in full speed and half diving isn’t routine ordinary effort. I think that’s why no infield fly call there

This play actually pisses me off lol people shouldnt be rewarded for dumb luck or lack of skill. Dang

Seattle Mariners fan here and as far as I'm concerned the infield fly rule should've been invoked.

This was a great call! The umpire signals to the other officials “this is an infield fly situation”, a pop fly occurs near the pitcher’s mound but the second baseman has to make extraordinary effort to make the catch, officials recognize this and call it off. Remember, an infield fly rule is in effect if 1- pop fly is hit in the infield in fair territory 2- less than 2 outs (0-1out) 3- runners on 1st and 2nd OR bases loaded 4-“ordinary effort” was made by the defender on the pop fly Remember, it is not based on WHO can make “ordinary effort” by proximity, it is about the defender making the effort ordinary or extraordinary. I think this was a brilliant designed play by the Athletics though. They probably got a scouting report on the Rangers base running tendencies and use this play in this situation. Pitcher throws higher pop up %, pitch, if it goes near the mound, pitcher does nothing causing infield to make extraordinary effort hoping runners are napping. If it wasn’t designed, really heads up defense knowing the situation before hand and recognizing it changed mid play, the runners did not.

The infield fly rule is supposed to prevent this play from happening. In this situation the base runners have no chance to be safe at any of the double up bases (3rd/2nd) becuase the distance they would need to travel down the basepath in relation to where the ball was hit would jeopordize them from getting back to their base without easily being doubled up. The call can and should have been an out regardless of whether or not it was caught ahead of the play.

Saying pitchers aren't athletes is akin to calling the air force the chair force. I love it

Ordinary effort for the pitcher slowly walking to make the play 5 ft away from him? Yes, it would have been. Pitchers need to field their position.

I was at this game and watching the play live, I immediately thought it was an infield fly. When they called double play everyone in the stadium was confused (and booing). Second baseman didn't even run full speed to get to the ball. Pitcher could've stepped back a few steps and caught it pretty easily. Terrible call.

You are correct

Fair call by the ump but IMO they should just change the rule. The rule exists to prevent situations exactly like this, and if it's not working, it should be changed

I played baseball thru college level. Personally the infield fly rule was inforced so little to my recollection that I cant recall it significantly effecting any game I played in. Just recently I took the time to read the rule out of curiosity. Imo, this play is the epitamy of why this rule exists. Ask yourself what a runner is supposed to do on this play. The only answer is stay at the bag. The rule is there to protect the runners. Were these runners protected? The answer, hell no! Its an anomoly though, probably wont happen like this rest of season.

I think if they drop an infield pop fly then you can only get one out max unless the base runners try to take extra bases

Hey Jomboy, you are wrong about the umpire's call. He didn't signal "infield fly", but did signal "out" until the second baseman dropped the ball. He then changed his call to "safe".

I mean, the rule as written, yeah, maybe the right call. But I think that just means the rule needs to be re-written because this is the exact situation the rule is trying to prevent. Nothing the runners can do there.

So an infielder can just sprint from the worst position and "try" to make the play even though there are multiple people within walking distance to the ball and now it's not Infield fly worthy? That's what I took away from this.

I feel like an episode where you bring in an umpire to talk about certain niche rules and plays would be cool

You should break-down the infield fly rule call from the Braves-Cards 1 game playoff in 2012.

I think this is a good example of why "ordinary effort" should be removed from the infield fly rule. The baserunners have the right to know BEFORE the first pitch is thrown, whether they are safe to remain on their base or not.

He did try to catch it... but I still think it should have been called because some pitchers will stand underneath until called off (see corbin burnes) and if he had given literally any effort at all it should have been a catch. like by that logic if the ball is flied sky high to the second baseman but he just lays down for a nap and the first baseman doesnt quite get there, it isnt an infield fly and you can turn the double play. seems like a loophole in a rule designed to prevent a loophole.

A's about to win a championship in Sacramento next year

April 17 2016 Kinsler for the Tigers did something similar

If there was ever an infield fly, this was it. The rule was designed to protect runners from situations just like this. The runners can't fucking run. This was pro level umpiring? Fucking ridiculous. An MLB player should have made that catch with ordinary effort. MLB players make that catch all day long. He just booted it. The fact that the ump started to call it is further proof. No review? I'm not an MLB fan but I know the rule and what it is designed to do.

Was at the game and immediately thought it was an infield fly. Doesn’t really matter since my team couldn’t get a hit

I honestly didn't know the infield fly rule had to be on a ball that requires ordinary effort. If you hadn't said the rule, I would've been like, wtf kinda call is that?! Great breakdown!!

Angel's fan here. Definitely not rangers fan, I think the consideration should be if The play should be considered routine.Just because you rearrange your infield doesn't take away the fact that it should have been routine.

Literally the reason for the infield fly rule 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Just one more thing that baseball needs to fix. The rule was created to prevent what happened here. Why couldn't the umpires be allowed to sort it out AFTER the play is over? If a pop fly hits an infielder in the chest and he drops it, what is the baserunner supposed to do???

"LETHHH GOOOO!" 😂

Hey I can’t wait for my season

pitchers are fielders and that shouldn't be ignored under ANY circumstance.

The ambiguity of the rule should be resolved with "any fly ball hit inside the diamond regardless of the effort needed to catch it, should be called an infield fly"...

Im kinda new to baseball but whats the negatives of the people on base running to the nect base in this scenario.

Can you do a video on the angel Hernandez 5-0 strikeout?