Umpires governing the Chicago White Sox-Tampa Bay Rays game Sunday gave proponents of using instant replay in Major League Baseball some huge ammunition.

In the bottom of the 10th inning with A.J. Pierzynski on second base with one out Jermaine Dye hit a groundball to shortstop. Pierzynski suffered a brain fart, taking off for third before getting caught in a rundown. On the third or fourth throw, Pierzynski threw an elbow at Willy Aybar and immediately fell down. When he was tagged out he pointed to the umpires and claimed he was interfered with.

The second base umpire agreed and awarded Pierzynski second base.

Aybar and shortstop Jason Bartlett, among others, immediately protested. They were joined by Joe Maddon who pleaded his case well enough for the umpires to conference – and then make the situation worse by having Pierzynski advance to third base instead.

An intentional walk to Jim Thome and a base hit by Alexei Ramirez later the White Sox had salvaged the third game of the series.

Certainly instant replay, as it is being discussed at this point, wouldn’t have taken this play into account. It’s being discussed solely for determining questionable and disputed home run calls. But if you are going to implement instant replay I don’t see why you wouldn’t eventually start taking it into account on almost anything except balls and strikes.

This was an obvious bad call – Pierzynski clearly, obviously threw an elbow at Aybar and should have been out. He was also standing outside the baseline on the infield grass. Maybe the Rays should have executed the rundown better – and I hate when teams blame an umpire or referee call for losing a game when there are 27 outs, 9 innings, four quarters, three periods, etc. that also have an impact on the results.

And I still wouldn’t implement instant replay in the middle of the season without testing it during winter ball or some other non-Major League games. But in this game the Rays clearly got hosed during a season in which they are leading the pennant race for the first time in their history. If you are going to do it, do it right and make sure situations like this don’t arise.

ADD 1: Third base umpire Ted Barrett reportedly defended the call after the game saying Aybar didn’t have the ball and thus had to get out of the way. This is a cop out. Aybar was clearly attempting to get out of the way when Pierzynski clearly lunged at him – and barely made contact. Pierzynski admitted after the game he was trying to get close enough to someone to touch them so he could get an interference call. The umpires need to see through these shenanigans. It was a heads up play by Pierzynski attempting to cover up for his initial bad decision, but this one is on the umpiring crew for blowing what was such an obviously ridiculous attempt at drawing this call by the baserunner.

ADD 2: One Rays blogger is saying umpire Doug Eddings should be fined and suspended. I agree with the poster’s point that Major League Baseball is spineless in dealing with its umpires, but I think suspensions should be reserved for when umpires physically accost or go out of their way to make controversial situations. The umps definitely blew this call terribly and it, unfortunately, played a role in the Rays losing the game. But as posted before teams can’t blame losing a game like this on one blown call. There were other opportunities for the Rays to win this game and they didn’t. Still, it was one of the worst calls I’ve seen all season.