Baltimore Orioles catcher James McCann failed to prevent a run from scoring due to his poor defensive positioning on an attempted force-out at home during Wednesday night's game against San Francisco.
It happened in the top of the fourth with the bases loaded and nobody out with the Orioles holding a 2-1 lead. On the first pitch of his at-bat, Giants batter Grant McCray hit a dribbler down the first base line which was fielded by pitcher Hayden Birdsong. McCray positioned himself at home for the force-out, and Birdsong tossed the ball underhand to McCray in time to beat Giants runner Heliot Ramos.
There was just one problem, and home plate umpire John Libka was in perfect position to see it, to his credit: McCann's foot was not touching home plate.
Usually helps to step on home plate if you’re the catcher in that situation pic.twitter.com/fPUTh3fSjk
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 18, 2024
Ramos was correctly ruled safe and the run tied the game at 2-2. The Orioles checked the replay and passed on the challenge, as television camera angles provided the perfect view of the play which showed McCann's foot was not on the plate. The Orioles were charged with an error on the play. As of this writing, the ESPN box score does not indicate who was charged with the error, although we would guess it would be McCann in this case. The Giants scored two more runs in the inning on an RBI single by Casey Schmitt.
We have seen MLB players forget the number of outs, leading to blunders in the field. In this case, McCann seemed to be pretty sure that he had his foot touching home plate, but was sadly mistaken. We will bet that he won't make that mistake again.
McCann had an RBI double earlier in the game. He walked in the eighth inning but was unable to score. In the end, the Orioles lost to the Giants 5-3 to 4 1/2 games back of the Yankees for the American League East division lead with 10 games left to play in the regular season.
Moonlighting as a blogger to pursue my interest and enjoyment of sports. Former high school and Division I athlete (now a "retired" family man) that loves watching and discussing all sports. Follow me on Twitter (@HoldoutSports) and like Holdout Sports on Facebook.
