Padres pitcher gives up two straight runs on balks in ‘strange’ inning
One of Major League Baseball’s balk rules came into play on Sunday afternoon when Padres pitcher Logan Gillaspie was called for back-to-back balks in the first inning.
The two calls ended up driving runs in for the Cubs and allowed Chicago to take the lead.
The confusion started when Cubs catcher Carson Kelly was at the plate and the umpire signaled a balk.
The call set off a lengthy delay and allowed Nico Hoerner to score from third to put Chicago ahead by one.
On the very next batter, Gillaspie once again found himself incurring the wrath of another balk call that allowed yet another runner to score.
Gillaspie managed to get out of the first inning without any further runs, crossing the plate after the Padres’ pitcher was able to get Carson Kelly to line out, but San Diego trailed 5-3.
While it wasn’t clear at first, Padres reporter Bob Scanlan seemed to get the inside scoop during the second inning on why the balks were called in the “strange” start to the game.
“Logan Gillaspie actually declared that he was going to be working out of the wind-up with a runner on third base, which is fine,” Scanlan reported. “You got to let the umpires know, but if you’re going to do that, you can’t stop.”
Showing a replay of the first balk, Scanlan pointed out how he stopped as he set up for the pitch because, “now all of a sudden it looks like he’s working out of the stretch position.”
The Padres allowed two more runs to score in the bottom of the second inning, but San Diego did manage to score two runs in the fourth and one run in the fifth to cut their deficit to one.
They would end up completing the rally to claim a stunning 8-7 victory.
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