Cleveland defeated Seattle 6-5, in 10 innings, on Sunday thanks to a critical runner's lane interference no-call by HP Umpire Brennan Miller on Guardians batter Josh Naylor's infield ground ball, resulting in an error that allowed runner Jose Ramirez to score the eventual game-winning run. Article: [ Ссылка ]
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Runner's Lane Interference is described in Official Baseball Rule 5.09(a)(11), which declares the batter out for RLI if, "in running the last half of the distance from home base to first base, while the ball is being fielded to first base, they run outside (to the right of) the three-foot line, or inside (to the left of) the foul line, and in the umpire’s judgment in so doing interfere with the fielder taking the throw at first base, in which case the ball is dead."
You'll notice there are two criteria to this rule. The first is that the batter-runner (Naylor) must fail to run within the running lane. Replays indicate Naylor clearly ran to the left of (aka inside) the foul line, meaning that his position satisfied the criterion of runner positioning relative to an RLI violation.
However, the second criterion pertains to the interference element: in order for RLI to be called, the batter-runner's otherwise-illegal positioning must actually interfere with the fielder taking the throw at first base. In other words, the interference must prevent the fielder (first baseman Ty France in this case) from making the play to retire the batter-runner.
Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh's throw to France was low and bounced before arriving at first base. The question then becomes whether or not Naylor's position running inside the line hindered or impeded first baseman France from fielding the bouncing throw or not. Whether or not Naylor's movements hindered catcher Raleigh is irrelevant and immaterial to this rule: the only question is whether or not Naylor's position interfered with first baseman France's catching of the throw.
If the throw was uncatchable or would require a spectacular or unreasonable play to make the catch and complete the play to retire the batter-runner, then the proper call is no call, which is what HP Umpire Miller called when he signaled "safe" to indicate no runner's lane interference had occurred.
