Kansas City Royals lose after replay review says Jose Abreu wasn’t tagged at home

The Kansas City Royals came up on the short end of a controversial call upheld by replay at the end of a suspenseful Sunday on Chicago’s south side.

Wade Davis’ wild pitch with two outs in a tie game allowed Jose Abreu to score from third and give the Chicago White Sox a 4-3 walk-off win in front of an announced 9,928 at Guaranteed Rate Field.

The ruling that ended the game prompted Royals manager Mike Matheny to be highly critical of Major League Baseball’s replay system in his postgame comments.

“There’s a lot that happened in that game, and I just have to make a point that if we’re going to use video replay, there needs to be some accountability,” a heated Matheny said. “I just walked in here and had two different camera angles with this guy out, tagged before he ever even touched the plate — and very obvious.

“I don’t know what they’re doing, if they’re backing each other up. Whatever it is, it’s wrong. A game that hard-played, that well-fought all the way to the end. And they’ve got the opportunity to take that much time. From appearances, it looks like they don’t want to bring them back on the field while they’re here with this crowd. It’s just wrong. Something needs to be done about it.”

Royals catcher Cam Gallagher blocked the Davis curveball in the dirt, but it caromed far enough away for Abreu to break for the plate. Davis had run to cover the plate and receive a throw, but Gallagher scrambled to gather the ball and dived, glove first, for the plate as Abreu slid.

“He was safe,” White Sox veteran outfielder Adam Eaton told reporters on a postgame video conference. “They said he was safe, they even gave it replay. I had a pretty good view of it.

“Cam, I think made the right decision. It’s tough for a pitcher to run that far and to catch, find the home plate and we don’t want another collision like we did. I think it’s tough play. So Cam I think made the right play there. Bang-bang play. Heckuva slide by José and we’ll definitely take it.”

On replay, Gallagher’s glove clearly arrived and crossed the plate well before Abreu reached to touch home. Home plate umpire Edwin Moscoso apparently ruled Gallagher whiffed on the tag and Abreu touched home plate without being touched by Gallagher’s glove.

“I thought I got him on the leg,” Gallagher said. “I don’t know. The replay must have shown otherwise, but I know I touched his leg. It’s not for me to determine. I’ve just got to make the play. I’ve just kind of gotta move on. This one stings a lot for sure, but we’ll come back from it.”

Gallaher said when he saw the replay on the big screen in the stadium, it seemed to confirm what he thought happened.

While the White Sox (24-15) celebrated and began to run off the field, the Royals (18-22) were so sure the replay review would overturn the call that Whit Merrifield had already grabbed a batting helmet and was on deck preparing to bat at the start of the 10th inning.

“He didn’t go over the plate,” Matheny said of Abreu. “He never did touch it until his body came through later. The tag was already placed on his jersey. You could see the jersey move when he tagged him in the body.”

After more than two minutes of review, the umpires signaled “safe” and left the playing field. They trotted right in front of Merrifield, who had his arms out at his side in disbelief.

The report out of Major League Baseball’s headquarters in New York was that the call “stands,” so the officials there ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to overturn the call on the field.

Tough way to end

The game marked the finale of the three-day, four-game series between the teams as well as the seven-game road trip for the Royals.

The Royals haven’t won a series against the White Sox since they took two of three on Sept. 10-12, 2019 in Chicago.

They went into the ninth inning trying to secure a one-run victory, which would have given them three of the four games in the series.

Neither team led by more than one run throughout the game. The Royals scored an unearned run on a Salvador Perez sacrifice fly in the first inning after a passed ball allowed the runner to advance to third.

That lone unearned run was the difference between the teams until the bottom of the fifth inning. White Sox star shortstop Tim Anderson hit a two-out single and Eaton blasted a 1-2 slider from Royals starting pitcher Brady Singer over the center field wall for a two-run home run that gave the White Sox a 2-1 lead and injected a burst of energy into the home crowd in Chicago that had been waiting for a reason to jump to its feet and roar.

“I felt like I was locked in the whole entire time,” Singer said. “I felt like I was making every pitch that I wanted. Then one mistake cost me a lot.”

The Royals climbed back on top 3-2 in the seventh when Michael A. Taylor and Gallagher singled to start the inning. Nicky Lopez’s sacrifice bunt put both men in scoring position with Merrifield due up and one out. Merrifield had gone 0 for 3 in the game to that point, and the Royals were 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position.

Merrifield hit a chopper that Abreu gloved between the mound and first base on the run. Abreu didn’t try to make a throw on the run to the plate and the second baseman had no chance to cover first before Merrifield got there. Taylor scored, and Gallagher advanced to third.

The next batter, Carlos Santana, hit a deep drive to the wall in right field where Eaton made a leaping catch. Gallagher tagged-up and scored the go-ahead run to give the Royals a 3-2 edge.

Relief pitcher Greg Holland took over for Singer with a man on and one out in the seventh. He got out of the inning with the one-run lead intact, but he sandwiched a walk in between a strikeout and an inning-ending fly ball.

In the eighth inning, Holland made things much more interesting. He gave up a single and a walk before he retired the next two batters. After he walked Leury Garcia on a 3-2 pitch below the strike zone, the White Sox had the bases loaded in a one-run game.

Holland got the No. 9 hitter Nick Madrigal to hit a soft tapper up the first base line. Holland fielded and made the throw to first base from foul territory to avoid the runner and end the inning.

Holland threw a season-high 42 pitches.

Davis entered the game in the ninth with reliever Scott Barlow having thrown 31 pitches in the second of a back-to-back outings on Saturday night and Josh Staumont having thrown in three of the last four games, including back-to-back appearances on Friday (Game 1) and Saturday.

Davis gave up a double, a one-out RBI single by Yoan Moncada that tied the score 3-3.

Moncada attempted to score on Yermin Mercedes’ single to right field, but Merrifield threw him out at the plate for the second out of the inning.

Abreu advanced to third on the play. Davis’ wild pitch came on the following at-bat.