Yost gets taste of new replay rules

SURPRISE, Ariz. -- Instant replay confirmed the call on Dodgers second baseman Alex Guerrero's ninth-inning triple on Tuesday at Surprise Stadium. But the Royals didn't get a chance to challenge another aspect of the same play.

Guerrero led off the top of the ninth with a shot off the top of the center-field wall, which bounced back into play, was fielded by Jarrod Dyson and then thrown in while Guerrero stopped at third.

Dodgers manager Don Mattingly asked whether the ball cleared the wall for a homer, at which point the umpires decided to review the call. It was confirmed; the ball did not leave the yard.

"Just home run or not," Mattingly said of his question to the umpires. "I feel it's one of those that are close enough. It's hard to see the rail [because] it's the same color and we couldn't really tell."

Though his argument prompted the review, there was not a challenge by Mattingly, because it was after the sixth inning, when all replays are at the discretion of the umpires. While the play was being reviewed, Royals manager Ned Yost was trying to get replay information from his technicians on another aspect of the play. The Royals believed that Guerrero missed touching second base on his way to third.

"The whole time during the argument [over the home run] we were saying, 'Do we have anything on the baserunner?' [The answer was] 'No, we've got no footage,'" Yost said.

So Yost had no video on which to base his claim that Guerrero missed the base. Royals pitcher Louis Coleman was alerted to throw to second base for an appeal, but the umpires waved it off. By then, considerable time had passed and Coleman resumed pitching.

"Then when Louis is in the windup starting to deliver his pitch, they got the footage," Yost said. "So some of this stuff is happening way too slow."

Yost pointed out that for this Spring Training game there were only three TV cameras from which to derive video replays. That will change during the regular season, when several more cameras will be used for each game.

"Supposedly with the angles and the new equipment and the rapid transmissions back to each stadium, they say we'll have nine to 12 different angles that we'll have access to within nine seconds," Yost said.

He's confident that will happen.

"This stuff has to happen way faster," Yost said.