Ridiculous Cubs replay review that screwed Pete Crow-Armstrong raises questions

While the Chicago Cubs coasted to a victory over the New York Mets on Tuesday night, it was not without some drama. Of course, the biggest takeaway is that Edward Cabrera's status for the rest of the season is now in question, but there was an odd sequence of events with Pete Crow-Armstrong that ultimately led to a Craig Counsell ejection.

On a full-count pitch to Michael Busch in the seventh inning and Crow-Armstrong on first, the Cubs' center fielder attempted to steal second base. The pitch to Busch was ball four, negating the steal attempt. Yet, after the Mets challenged the play, Crow-Armstrong was ruled out.

Wait...what?

Replays show that after Crow-Armstrong successfully reached second base on a slide attempt, he disengaged with the base on the follow through. Because of that, when Bo Bichette still kept the tag on Crow-Armstrong, the original call was reversed.

Leave it to Pete Crow-Armstrong to expose a silly MLB rule

It truly was a bizarre sequence of events. By the letter of the law, yes, Crow-Armstrong should have been out.

“Runner on first and three balls on batter: Runner steals on the next pitch, which is fourth ball, but after having touched second he overslides or overruns that base. Catcher’s throw catches him before he can return. Ruling is that the runner is out. (Force out is removed.)”

The missing context with what happen with Crow-Armstrong is that he disengaged with second base because Bichette was applying the tag on a steal attempt. If the steal became moot once Busch drew the walk, there's a clear case to be made that the umpires should have used common sense in that moment.

Of course, most of MLB's rules don't account for common sense. Nonetheless, Counsell was ejected and left of us were wondering what exactly just happened. Speaking about the play after the game, Counsell took issue with the rule, and not the umpire crew.

“Umpires interpret rules correctly,” Counsell told reporters. “They don’t get that stuff wrong, but it’s a bad rule. It’s a terrible rule. I don’t know what else to say. Not a good rule.”

If there's been controversy this season, Crow-Armstrong has been the one to find it. This time, it does appear like he was the one that wronged by a rule that may need to be reworded. At the very least, it didn't cost the Cubs on Tuesday night.

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