CINCINNATI — Elly De La Cruz stood on first base Tuesday night with one out in the eighth inning. His Cincinnati Reds were facing the Philadelphia Phillies in their series opener at Great American Ball Park, a game that would end in a 4-1 loss. But in the penultimate inning, the Reds had a gasp of a chance. And they had it because De La Cruz used his head in addition to his feet.
The scene unfolded like this: De La Cruz at first, Ivan Johnson at second and Sal Stewart at the plate. Stewart hit a soft grounder to Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm, who threw to second. The speedy De La Cruz beat Bohm’s throw and ran through the bag without sliding. Phillies second baseman Bryson Stott threw on to first ahead of Stewart to complete what Philadelphia believed was an inning-ending double play.
Before the Phillies could leave the field, De La Cruz was ruled safe, and the inning continued.
Phillies manager Don Mattingly came out to argue that De La Cruz had abandoned the bag when he ran through it, but umpire Mike Estabrook ruled that De La Cruz had not abandoned the play and was safe at second.
“The only thing that could be challenged is the safe/out — they wanted abandoning of the basepath, but that is not challengeable,” crew chief Alfonso Márquez told a pool reporter. “On the field, you can’t abandon if you’re safe and you return to the bag.”
Mattingly told reporters that during spring training, managers were told that runners couldn’t run through the bag and had to attempt to advance to the next base. De La Cruz didn’t appear to do that, but he also didn’t appear to abandon on the play, racing to get back to the bag after the throw was made.
The Phillies had a similar play against the Kansas City Royals, but Mattingly said in that instance, the runner went toward third.
“I am arguing that he abandoned second base,” Mattingly said of De La Cruz, contrasting it with the play in Kansas City. “They did the same thing. The guy turned immediately toward third. That’s what they explained to us in spring training, that if you run through the bag, you’ve got to turn to third; you cannot continue toward left field. In our minds, De La Cruz did not turn toward third at all.”
Mattingly said he asked for a rules check from the umpires.
“Alfonso said the crew up there in New York said he did not abandon,” Mattingly said. “In our minds, it’s not what they explained in spring training.”
After the video review, Phillies infield coach Bobby Dickerson and pitching coach Caleb Cotham were ejected by third-base umpire Lance Barrett and home-plate umpire Malachi Moore. Dickerson had to be restrained following his ejection.
Mattingly said Dickerson told him he was yelling instructions to Stott when he was ejected by Barrett.
After the play was settled, Orion Kerkering walked JJ Bleday to load the bases. But Eugenio Suárez, who homered off Zack Wheeler the previous inning, struck out to end the Reds’ threat.
With the loss, the Reds fell to 41-49.
“It’s been tough for the last month and a half, but at the same time, we are baseball players, and we’ve got to understand that,” Suárez said. “We’ve got to move on to the next day and have a better day.”
