Didi out at home on athletic Givens play
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NEW YORK -- Mychal Givens had the best inning of his season in the 10th inning of Friday's 7-3 win in 14 innings against the Yankees. And then perhaps the craziest one after that.
Coming on in a 3-3 game, Givens -- who struck out Brett Gardner, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton in the bottom of the 10th -- uncorked a wild pitch and then showed off his athleticism in blocking Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius' bid to score the game-winning run.
After an eight-pitch battle, Givens walked Gregorius to start the bottom of the 11th. One out later, Givens intentionally walked Neil Walker and got a double-play ball to end the inning. Except it didn't stick, as Yankees manager Aaron Boone won his challenge that Ronald Torreyes was safe at first base. After a one minute, eight second review, the on-field ruling was overturned, extending the inning and bringing Givens back out onto the field.
The O's righty nearly ended the game after that, sailing a ball past catcher Caleb Joseph with Tyler Austin at the plate. Joseph did a quick shovel pass to the hustling Givens, who threw himself in front of the plate to block Gregorius and tag him out. The Yankees challenged the play, arguing that Givens had blocked the plate too much.
"We challenged, obviously, the blocking of the plate," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "I thought he did block the plate before he got there. We certainly thought that. But I understand that's a difficult call to make in that situation. It didn't go our way."
MLB has no plate-blocking rules for non-catchers. Even if Givens was a catcher, he would have been protected on the play, as he was making a legitimate attempt to catch Joseph's toss. Therefore, the on-field ruling of Gregorius being out held up after a review of two minutes, 20 seconds to send the game to the 12th.
"Replay has the ultimate voice in that and there was no blocking the plate," crew chief Jerry Meals said. "[Givens], in that situation, the player is deemed to be [occupying] the area to save the ball and/or [he] has the ball."