Re: MLB 2018.1: ...And The Nationals Will Not Make It Out of the First Round
It turns out we didn't bat out of order the
second time. But it was confusing.
The lineup handed to the Cincy manager had 1. Nimmo, 2. Cabrera, 3. Flores, 4. Bruce.
The Mets batted 1. Nimmo, 2. Flores, 3. Cabrera, 4. Bruce. Nimmo struck out; Flores struck out; Cabrera doubled. Bruce strode to the plate, the Cincy manager protested, the out was called, ending the inning. OK, so who leads off the second?
Then the Mets batted in the second inning. They led off with 5. Gonzalez, who got a hit, and the Cincy manager protested
again. At the time I thought he was correct and we should have started the inning with 4. Bruce. However, it turns out that is not how the rule works.
The rule works thusly: when the manager protested, it is that Bruce has batted out of order (on the basis of the lineup card given to the Cincy manager) by batting after Cabrera. Bruce should have batted after Flores. Therefore, Bruce is out. The Cincy manager could have protested when Flores strode to the plate to bat, but he waited to see what would happen. That gave him two "bites at the apple" for batting out of order because the Mets had transposed. Had the Mets realized the problem and just batted Bruce after Flores, skipping Cabrera totally, then Cincy would have missed their chance to protest (costing them nothing since Flores had made an out).
In addition, the rule also specifies that Cabrera's AB is erased as if it never happened.
So the Mets did not screw up the second time, the Cincy manager was just unaware of the full rule. He probably thought the "batting out of order" out had been applied to Cabrera, not Bruce.
