That was a real special moment for me too. WTF indeed?
After review … 
You are right and I was wrong. I had mistakenly thought the whole play began with an open base. But it was force all the way.
Essentially it was like an infield fly play where the ball is dropped and the force is on at every base if the umps muff calling “infield fly”. But in this case the dropped catch was at the wall, where the IFR isn’t applicable, and was called correctly as no-catch, so the force remained on throughout the play.
Had everybody taken off at the crack of the bat that’d have been an easy RBI, maaaybe two & no outs. Had the 3B runner taken off at the instant of no-catch he might well have beaten the throw. Which would still leave a need for the 1B & 2B runners to advance to make room for the batter-runner approaching 1B. One of whom was quite likely to be picked off or forced off. But if the run scored the inning would continue w two on & two out.
There’s not much camera time on the 3B runner, but as best I can reconstruct, he took a decent lead before the pitch, did start towards home early, then reversed towards 3B when he believed the ball was, or was about to be, caught. By the time he got turned around again towards HP he was all but doomed.
If I understand this correctly, then the contact with the wall that nullified the catch between the first and second touches of the glove makes this, for scoring purposes, “grounded into double play” — and the first time I’ve ever seen GIDP where the ball never once touches the ground.
The ball was hit to the wall. Assume there were two outs and everybody’s running at the crack of the bat. In that scenario, two runs score easily, and maybe three. As it happened, the runners should be moving as soon as the umpires rule it a no-catch. I think they probably all advance just one base, however.
The runner on third should be on the bag when the ball hits the glove. If he takes off as soon as the ball hits the glove, he scores quite easily. (Even if the ball is bobbled and then caught, he cannot be doubled off once the ball hits the glove.)
Which umpire makes that call, and what’s the signal? Are there extra umpires along the foul lines in the LCS? I wonder if that was part of the confusion; the runners weren’t used yo those extra umpires, didn’t know where to look for the no-catch ruling, and were watching the fielder instead. They thought the ball was caught and acted accordingly.
You’re right about the runner on third, though. He scores whether the ball is caught or not, so he should assume it will be, tag up, and run hime as soon as it hits the fielder’s glove. Easy to say in hindsight.
The call is the ‘safe’ sign. There are extra umpires down each foul line in the LCS. So either the left-field umpire is making the call, or the second-base umpire. (I can’t tell from the video.) Either way, if you’re the 1B or 2B baserunner, and you think the ball is caught, you are retreating to the bag. But then you should be looking at the umpires, and one of them is either calling the play safe or out. If it’s the safe sign, you’re on your way to the next base. Plus, the coaches should be screaming at you to get moving. Which probably didn’t happen.
Well, teams have come back from 0-2 before.
Meanwhile next door at Lumen Field Geno was the feel good sale this year. 
A commentator mentioned that he started to watch the play instead of focusing on what he should be doing, which is kind of what happened to Kerkering with the wild throw to home. The correct thing to do is run for home, just like the correct thing to do is throw to first. In both cases, the players got caught up in the moment, which is why a predicted outcome is never certain in sports.
//i\\
The 3rd base coach read the play correctly and was yelling at Hernandez to run as soon as the play happened.
The left field umpire called the play correctly, making a safe call indicating that the ball was live. What would be the call if the umpire incorrectly called an out? My guess is that the batter would be put on 1st or 2nd and everybody advancing 1 or 2 bases, but I’m not sure.
Good observation. Another factor:
When everyone is paying attention and does the right thing, the whole thing looks very smooth and choreographed. Because it is.
But …
As, say, the runner starting from 2B, the instant you observe the runner starting on 3B doing something unexpected, now you’re suddenly tossed from “Execute standard baserunning for long fly not caught” into ad lib mode: “What’s he doing? What’s he about to do? What should I do in response?” Very quickly that gets wacky as everybody starts reacting to the rapidly developing uncertainty around them.
My own occupation was similar. We had standard “plays” for everything and despite it being a pretty fast paced biz in general, we felt comfortably ahead of the situation all the time. But if somehow a mistake (ours or somebody else’s) forced us off the playbook, the time compression often became very critical. The world hadn’t sped up. But the number of original creative scenario-driven decisions to be made per second sure did.
*“It could happen” - Judy Tenuta
11% isn’t particularly crazy long odds.
ETA: semi-ninja’ed.
Roughly an 11% success rate.
Baseball is a very unstable sport where any given team on any given day …
I have not followed the regular season hardly at all. Been busy. To what degree can we say that TOR’s or LAD’s performance in these two games is their season (or post-season) norm, or is an outlier?
I’ll suggest that the norm vs. outlier factor will have more influence than the 11% statistic from 28 different matchups in 28 different years and several different eras.
Well-played.
I don’t think anyone but the umps and the catcher came out looking good. The third base coach didn’t tell the runner to go home until the ball was already halfway to the cutoff man, and then he was so focused on that runner, he never told the 2nd base runner to go, leading to the 2nd out.
The video from the reddit thread has a good view of the 3rd base runner starting at 2:02.
I know of two of those times, and both happened in 1985.
In the 1985 NLCS, the Dodgers beat the Cardinals in the first two games in St. Louis. Then the Cards swept the Dodgers 3 games in LA, and won game 6 back in St. Louis to win the pennant.
Then, in the 1985 World Series, the Cards beat the Royals in the first two games in Kansas City. The Royals won game 3 in St. Louis, lost game 4, and then won game 5 to send the series back to KC. The Royals then won Games 6 and 7 to win the championship.
Cool analogy.
I’ve seen it pointed out elsewhere that even if Teoscar Hernandez left when he should have, it likely wouldn’t have resulted in a run, as none of the other runners went either and they probably would have forced the out at both third and second, ending the inning on a force out, which negates any runs.
That is a great point, and probably correct.