Official scorer absolves Miner of earned runs

Sunday, the official scorer of Saturday's game in Detroit, Ron Kleinfelter, changed his mind about the play that led to Tigers pitcher Zach Miner being tagged for five earned runs. With the bases loaded and two outs, Cleveland's Adstrubal Cabrera hit a fly ball to Tigers left fielder Ryan Raburn, who stumbled, then recovered to make the catch. Except instead of making the catch, Raburn watched the ball pop out of his glove, leading to the bases clearing. Two more runs were later scored. The play was officially ruled a double, amazing, I believe, everyone except Oakland Press beat writer Jim Hawkins. However, Kleinfelter changed his mind about it Sunday, ruling it a two-base error, and wiping out Cabrera's RBIs. MLB.com beat writer Jason Beck reports Miner will still be charged with two earned runs. (Isn't this debatable? All five runs scored after what should clearly have been the third out when you reconstruct the inning. These earned run rules are always weird.)

It was clearly the right decision to change the result to an error. Raburn got to the ball. It hit leather. It was not a difficult play, even Marcus Thames and Carlos Guillen would have gotten to the ball! Miner did not deserve all those earned runs when he should have had the third out and a 5-0 lead.

The Tigers went on to win, 9-7.