Fourth-out rule

The Dodgers @ D'backs game on Sunday featured a really bizarre play in the top of the 2nd inning. Arizona's pitcher Danny Haren thought he had made an inning ending double play and prevented a run from scoring. However, the Dodgers made an appeal to the umpires that their run should have counted due to a technicality in the rulebooks called the fourth-out rule. I'm not making this up because it totally sounds like some kind of April fools gag.

Ken Gurnick of MLB.com wrote the following summary:

If Wolf won the game with his arm, he made the highlights with his bat, starting the strange second-inning play that tied the score with a run awarded when the Arizona defense did not execute the rarely seen fourth-out rule.

Andre Ethier was at third base, Juan Pierre at second, and with one out and the infield drawn in, Wolf lined out to pitcher Dan Haren, who threw to second baseman Felipe Lopez, who tagged out Pierre off second base for the third out of the inning.

But by the time Lopez tagged Pierre, Ethier -- breaking on contact as instructed -- had crossed the plate. The D-backs -- believing the inning was over and not realizing that Ethier's run was live -- left the field without making a play on Ethier at third base. As the teams changed sides, plate umpire Larry Vanover walked over to third-base umpire Charlie Reliford, apparently to discuss the play.

This is where Schaefer stole the run. He noticed the umpires talking and pointed out to manager Joe Torre that the run should score, citing the fourth-out rule, which Torre said Schaefer had talked about during Spring Training.

Torre went out to appeal. And after an umpire huddle, Vanover ruled that Schaefer was right, the Ethier run counted -- even though Ethier had not tagged up -- because there was no appeal play made at third base.

"They got it right," Arizona manager Bob Melvin said after a half-hearted chat with Vanover.

Afterward, umpire crew chief Reliford said the run was not immediately awarded because there was confusion over whether Lopez had stepped on second base before tagging Pierre, even though second-base umpire Dan Iassogna didn't rule Pierre out until he was tagged by Lopez, which the umpires eventually concluded.

"They could have gotten the fourth out with an appeal at third base," Reliford said, "but they didn't do that before leaving the field."

[MLB.com]