LOS ANGELES — Forget the travails of some slumping hitters. The managers took oh-fers here in the Dodgers-Phillies series finale on Thursday night at Dodger Stadium when it came to challenging the umpires’ calls.
Both Los Angeles’ Don Mattingly and Philadelphia’s Ryne Sandberg challenged calls, and the umpires went 2-for-2.
As things turned out, the call that went against the Dodgers in the fifth inning, when Mattingly lost a crew-chief review on a play in which Hanley Ramirez was tagged out at the plate, was the more significant of the two.
With one out, Ramirez on third base and Adrian Gonzalez on first, Yasiel Puig hit a one-hopper behind the third-base bag. Cody Asche fielded the ball and flipped to the plate, well ahead of Ramirez.
Catcher Carlos Ruiz caught the ball, dropped his right leg to block the plate and tagged Ramirez out standing up as called by plate umpire Mike Di Muro.
Mattingly came out immediately to argue that Ruiz had blocked Ramirez’s path to the plate, an infraction under new rules implemented this year to avoid home-plate collisions. But a review called by crew chief Hunter Wendelstedt confirmed the ruling.
Then in the sixth inning with the Phillies clinging to a 3-2 lead, Wendelstedt ruled Juan Uribe safe at first on a bang-bang play following a ground ball to deep shortstop. Freddy Galvis double-pumped before throwing the ball and appeared slow to release it, but the Phillies thought the throw still beat Uribe.
The call would stand after the replay review, but Uribe advanced only as far as second base before the inning ended.
Ken Gurnick is a reporter for MLB.com. Scott Miller is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
