Pirates Lose on Jerry Meals Awful Call At Home

It has been been just over 5 hours since the conclusion of last night's Pirates and Braves game. Being that it's 7 in the morning, that's saying something in and of itself. Last night, the longest game in Pirates history was played; 6 hours and 19 innings. The sad part of it is, that is not even the story here on Wednesday morning.

The story is Jerry Meals. The home plate umpire who made one of the worst calls you will ever see in any sport. Bottom of the 19th, runners on first and third, and the Braves final pitcher to be used, Scott Proctor hits a groundball to Pedro Alvarez's left. Alvarez gloves the ball and fires a strike to catcher Michael McKenry that beats the runner Julio Lugo to the base by 5 feet. McKenry applies a sweep tag on Lugo's knee and raises his glove to show the umpire the ball as Lugo's momentum takes him the extra 2 feet he needed to make it to home plate. Jerry Meals then did the unthinkable and called Lugo safe on the basis that McKenry missed the tag. Here's videos of the whole thing.

Meals commented after the game, here's what he said:

'I saw the tag, but he looked like he oléd him and I called him safe for that. I looked at the replays and it appeared he might have got him on the shin area. I'm guessing he might have got him, but when I was out there when it happened I didn't see a tag. I just saw the glove sweep up. I didn't see the glove hit his leg.'

Pittsburgh is in a state of rage right now, and Meals not admitting that he blew the call isn't going to help calm the city down. Sure, he reasonably could have thought that McKenry could have missed the tag, but unless it is blatantly obvious, and I mean blatantly obvious, you do not make that call when the runner is out by that much. Unreal.

Pittsburgh is going to be talking about this one all day. The longest game in Pirates history, decided by one of the biggest umpiring blunders in baseball's recent history (if not for Jim Joyce, I would say the biggest blunder).

Some have said this was the hardest loss the Pirates have taken since Sid Bream slid safely into home in the 1992 NLCS. It's hard to argue that, since this is the first year that baseball has been relevant since then.

It was a classic baseball game last night, and it's a real shame we didn't get to see the players decide a winner. 

Alright. Now in addition to all that, we can't lose sight of the atrociousness that was the Pirates offense last night. Lyle Overbay was 1/8 and only hit 2 balls well, and Pedro Alvarez had only 1 hit and struck out 4 times, leaving 7 runners on base. Andrew McCutchen's second half struggles continue as he was 0/6. The game management was also very questionable, as an embarrassingly unsuccessful suicide squeeze killed a really good chance for the Bucs in the 9th. Hurdle also elected to sacrifice bunt a couple of times, once with Alvarez with Overbay on deck. There's no excuse for giving up an out with your current worst hitter on deck. The Pirates pitching was awesome, the bullpen went 13 scoreless innings before the not-run that ended the game. Everything is fine for the Pirates, oh, except the offense, that's a huge problem. Get a bat. Now.