Sox are the home team. Raining throughout the game. Mariners take the lead 3-2 in the 5th inning. Bottom of the 7th, Sox score two runs to make the score 4-3 but the rain comes much harder and before the inning is over, the umps stop the game. Sox win 4-3. But I have always thought that if the game is called, the score reverts to the last full inning or the last half inning if the home team is ahead. I don’t know why the Sox were awarded this win. This seems new to me, although it probably isn’t. What happened here? Where am I confused?
Rule 4.12(a)(5):
“Regulation game” is defined in 4.10, and I’m not going to paste all of that, but the gist is that you need at least five innings (four-and-a-half if the home team is winning) before the umpire calls the game. Basically, the game was over because the home team was winning in the bottom of the inning in which the game was called. If the Sox had scored one or zero runs in the portion of the 7th they played, it would have been a suspended game instead, and they’d have had to play the remainder at some future date.
That’s exactly what I thought. But it wasn’t called a suspended game and the Sox DID score a run or more in their portion of the 7th. I thought the game should either be suspended, and picked up with the score where it was, or the game should be called with the score reverting to the end of the top of the 7th with Seattle ahead. But that didn’t happen.
You misunderstood what I said. If the Sox score one or zero runs (not one or more runs), in the 7th, it would have been a suspended game. Instead, the Sox won for the same reason that the game immediately ends when the home team scores the winning run in the 9th inning: Because the rest of the inning isn’t needed.
ETA: Rule 4.11, which seems so obvious it isn’t necessary, but it’s relevant here:
Yeah - rereading your post, I realized that’s the point. They did go ahead. Game effectively over.
Moved to the Game Room.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I’m confused. A straightforward reading of this rule would be that the game would not be suspended if the Sox hadn’t taken the lead in the 7th. Because the Mariners originally took the lead in the 5th, not in the top of the 7th, the second conjunct (“and the visiting team has scored one or more runs to take the lead [in the current inning]”) wouldn’t apply. Were the game called before the Sox scored in the 7th, the Mariners would have won.
This is right based on my days of umpiring (not Major League) unless the rule has been changed recently.
One thing I they did change was:
Score is 4-3 in favor of home team. In the top of the seventh visitors score two making it 4-5. If home team doesn’t score, but 7th not completed, game reverts and home team wins 4-3. If home team scores 1, but 7th is not completed, games is a tie 5-5 and must be replayed (so home team would have been better off not scoring). Both of these situations now result in a suspended game.