Ty France Hit the Roof at American Family Field and It Was Ruled an Out. The Padres Lost NLDS Game 1
Two outs, ninth inning, Milwaukee up 3-2, a runner on first representing the tying run. Ty France got a 98.9 mph fastball on the inner half and hit it 105.3 mph into the night.
It hit the roof. It changed direction. Jackson Chourio caught it on the warning track. Game over.
The ruling was correct and that is the problem
American Family Field’s ground rules are clear. A batted ball that strikes the retractable roof in fair territory remains in play and can be caught for an out. In foul territory, it is a foul ball.
France’s fly ball went down the left-field line and struck the roof rail in fair territory. Crew chief Alfonso Marquez, a 27-year major league veteran, confirmed after replay review that the out stood.
By the letter of the ground rules, that is right. By any reasonable standard of what baseball is supposed to be, a season-altering swing being redirected by a building is absurd.
What Statcast says it was
Exit velocity 105.3 mph. Launch angle 49 degrees. Expected batting average of .050.
That last number is the one the Brewers will point to. A ball hit that high with that much loft is almost always an out. Statcast calculated it would have been a home run in exactly one major league park, Daikin Park in Houston.
France was asked directly whether it leaves the yard without the roof. “Yup,” he said.
Both things can be true. It was a low-probability home run and it also never got the chance to be one.
The quotes
France was still processing it afterward. “I haven’t really been able to fully process that, but yeah, it’s a game-changing swing,” he said.
Then he got to the real complaint. “You would think with all the technology and data and everything we have now, we’d be able to make a clear call on that. That shouldn’t be an out.”
Manny Machado made the same point more coolly: “I do know the fact that with all the technology we have in this game, I think that’s one of the situations where you kinda know what’s gonna happen.”
Craig Stammen, in his first season managing San Diego, did not fight it. “They ruled that it hit the roof fair, and the outfielder caught it,” he said. “So, unfortunately, it’s a bad break for us.”
Chourio’s version is the most useful. “I wasn’t all that sure that it even hit anything,” he said. “I thought I had a chance on that ball the whole time off the bat, and the only thing I realized is that it kind of changed directions.”
Brewers manager Pat Murphy credited the late Bob Uecker: “I’m telling you, ‘Ueck’ reached up there and knocked that ball down.”
The rest of the game
Jacob Misiorowski went four innings for Milwaukee before a parade of relievers. Chourio hit a two-run homer in the third to tie it, his fifth career postseason home run and a Brewers record. William Contreras added the go-ahead solo shot in the seventh.
Trevor Megill retired Jackson Merrill on a lineout to right for his first career playoff save. Adrian Morejon pitched for San Diego.
Milwaukee won 103 games and is the No. 1 seed in the National League. San Diego won 91 and beat the Cubs in the wild card round. The Brewers lead the series 1-0.
Our take
MLB should change this rule and it should do it before next October. No ground rule should let a stadium’s architecture decide a playoff game, and a ball that strikes a fixed overhead structure in fair territory should be a dead ball with the hitter credited or awarded bases rather than a catchable fly.
No official league statement has come out, and no published rulebook language has been circulated. That silence is its own answer.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
