The Los Angeles Dodgers completed a comeback against the Houston Astros thanks to a controversial balk by reliever Ryne Stanek.
The first balk of Ryne Stanek's career was ill-timed, as the Houston relief pitcher allowed the winning run to cross home plate. Stanek insisted that he did not break the rules, however the home-plate umpire doubled down, thus leading to the ejection of Stanek and some of the Astros coaching staff.
While the movement is barely noticeable from the average viewer's perspective, it does appear that Stanek flinches prior to throwing towards home plate. This, as is defined in the rulebook, would be considered a balk.
MLB Balk Rule explained: What is a balk?
FanSided's Drew Koch tried to explain MLB's balk rule prior to the start of this season. The problem, it would appear, is that the rule itself is not clearly defined.
"There really isn't a simple way to explain what a balk is other than to say that it's an infraction on the part of the pitcher that allows him to gain an unfair advantage over the base runner. So, the first thing that can be said about a balk is that it only occurs when there are runners on base.
The rule actually dates back to the 19th century is covered under Section 6.02 (a) of the Official Baseball Rules. There are actually 13 different ways that balk can be called, the most common of which would be the pitchers feinting a throw to home plate without completing the pitch or feinting a throw to first or third base without making a pickoff attempt," Koch wrote.
Did Astros get screwed on Ryne Stanek balk?
Technically, Stanek did make some sort of movement, stop his windup, and then restarted his delivery. If we're getting technical, yes it would seem he committed some sort of infraction. However, if Stanek was called for a balk on this occasion, then so should most pitchers on a game-by-game basis. Stanek's infraction was no more obvious than a first-inning pickoff attempt by, say, Clayton Kershaw.
The standard is the standard, but that's part of the problem here — no one really understands the rule, including these umpires.
