John Farrell the first manager to be ejected after video review

The Red Sox would lose to the Yankees 3-2 on Sunday night, and manager John Farrell believes a significant reason for that was this overturned play in the fourth inning, in which an inning-ending double play turned into a run-scoring play instead:

Essentially, Francisco Cervelli reached first base at the same time the throw reached Mike Napoli's glove: as the call had already been made that Cervelli was out, and no conclusive evidence existed via review that Cervelli had clearly beaten the throw, the play should have stood as it was originally called. John Farrell tried to say as much to the umpires, and became the first manager thrown out for arguing a reviewed call in the process, as arguing a reviewed call is an auto-ejection:

Over at The Sporting News, Jesse Spector has a quote from Farrell on the problem with this call:

"We felt it was clear that the replay was inconclusive," Farrell said. "The frustrating part is, when this was rolled out and explained to us, particularly on the throw to the first baseman, we were instructed that when the ball enters the glove - not that it has to hit the back of the glove - is where the out is deemed complete. At the same time, any angle that we looked at, you couldn't tell that the foot was on the bag behind Mike Napoli's leg. So, where this became conclusive is a hard pill to swallow. On the heels of yesterday, it's hard to have any faith in the system, to be honest with you."

In essence, Farrell is upset that the umpires weren't doing things according to the rules as he understood them. It's not difficult to see why he would take issue with that, either, as this was a one-run game at the time, in a series the Red Sox were trying to salvage. The botched review also came just one day after Major League Baseball admitted to screwing up to Boston's disadvantage on another reviewable play, in which the umpires back in New York on review duty, for whatever reason, didn't have the proper angles on video to be reviewed even though the Red Sox did.

Video review is a good idea, and it will likely be worth trusting at some point. Early on in the process, though, there are going to be significant issues like this that expose problems with the system. For Sox fans, it's a shame that those issues might have cost  Boston a game, since the entire purpose of video review is to keep a single play from incorrectly deciding any contest. They won't be the only ones jobbed by the system in the early going, however, not that this is an entirely comforting thought.