CHICAGO -- The White Sox lost a manager's challenge in the seventh inning of Friday's 3-1 loss to the Twins at Guaranteed Rate Field. And in the process, the Twins gained a run, extending a one-run lead to the final margin of two.
Chris Gimenez doubled just fair down the left-field line off of Nate Jones, marking the first batter the right-handed reliever faced, and Eduardo Escobar scored from first as a fan grabbed the ball while it was live. In that scenario it is up to the umpires' discretion on whether the run would have scored. They decided he would have, prompting a challenge from White Sox manager Rick Renteria.
The review determined that interference had, in fact, taken place and that the runners were properly placed, giving Minnesota a 3-1 lead.
"Basically it's an umpire's judgment call in terms of whether they believe he's going to be able to score or not, depending on where he was at when the action took place," Renteria said. "It's a reviewable play.
"We were in the seventh inning, so I thought, 'Let's go ahead and review it; let's give it a look.' We thought that we might have a chance. Obviously they decided that no, he would have scored, but it was worth us taking an opportunity to eliminate that run."
Minnesota manager Paul Molitor pointed out this instance represented one of the new rules on replay.
"You can challenge via replay the placement of runners after fan interference," Molitor said. "A few things happened on that play.
"Escobar ran hard the whole time. Gene [Glynn] had him going the whole time as the ball got close to the rail. They called the run good originally, and the challenge was to put Escobar back at third, but whatever they saw confirmed that they couldn't deny him that he would've scored so the run stood."