Angels, Jo Adell screwed by blown umpire call and replay against the Orioles

Angels' fans are waking up mad this morning, and rightfully so. Their team lost Wednesday's game against the Baltimore Orioles 6-5, but the game ended on an extremely controversial call.

The Angels were trailing 6-4 heading into the bottom of the ninth inning. But with Craig Kimbrel taking the ball for the O's, anything was possible, right? A single followed by a throwing error allowed Ehire Adrianza to advance to third base and later come home on a fielder's choice. That made it a one-run game.

But the controversy came a few batters later. With two outs and nobody on base, Jo Adell worked a walk during a seven-pitch at-bat against Kimbrel. On the first pitch of the next at-bat, Adell took off and tried to steal second base. The umpire ruled Adell out and the game was over, or was it?

LA Angels, Jo Adell screwed by blown umpire call and replay against the Orioles

Angels' manager Ron Washington challenged the call on the field, as it looked like Adell was able to sneak in and touch the base under the impending tag from Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson. Several replay angles seemed to confirm that Adell had swiped his sixth bag of the season.

But inexplicably, the replay review team in New York upheld the call on the field, Adell was ruled out, and the game was indeed over. This was not a case of the home plate umpire being late for a dinner reservation and just trying to get out of dodge, this call came from the Replay Command Center at MLB Headquarters.

Had Adell been (correctly) ruled safe, then the Halos would've had a runner in scoring position with Luis Rengifo at the plate. Would the Angels' second baseman have come up clutch and brought home the tying run with an RBI base knock? We'll never know.

It's one thing for the umpire on the field to miss a the call on a bang-bang play. That happens in almost every game. But when the replay center bungles the opportunity to correctly overturn what was obviously the incorrect call, that's when fans get upset.

If instant replay and using super slo-mo shots from varying angles doesn't result in the correct call, why is it even part of the game? This was a close call on the field, but another mistake on the part of Major League Baseball's Replay Command Center. Be better, MLB.

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