Pete Alonso, Jared Young homer as Mets defeat White Sox, overcome odd rule

Abbey Mastracco, New York Daily News on May 27, 2025

Published in Baseball

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NEW YORK — Come to Citi Field for the Mets, stay for the lesson on MLB’s obscure rules.

The Mets’ weekend series against the Los Angeles Dodgers was punctuated by two of MLB’s more rarely seen rules that came into play in the series opener. Tuesday night at Citi Field in the Mets’ 6-4 win over the Chicago White Sox, we learned about runners passing.

Sort of.

Down 2-0 in the bottom of the first inning, Brandon Nimmo was on first base with one out when Juan Soto hit a deep fly to center field off right-hander Jonathan Cannon. Center fielder Michael A. Taylor nearly tracked it down and dove at the last second as it tailed toward the right, covering up the ball right as it hit the ground.

However, it was tough to tell whether the ball fell for a hit or whether Taylor was able to catch it for the out. It was so tough to tell that neither the second base or third base umpire signaled a hit or an out. First base umpire Tom Hanahan signaled a hit, but without James Hoye at second or John Libka at third making a call, the hitters had no way of knowing where to stop, especially since Hanahan was behind Nimmo.

Nimmo turned to look at center field and saw what he thought was an out, so he retreated to first base, but Soto was still between first and second. No one was quite sure where to go or what had just happened.

It was ruled an out, but not because Taylor made a catch, but because the umpires determined Soto had passed the lead runner. Soto didn’t even get credited with a hit on the play, with it being recorded as a line-out to the first baseman.

Pete Alonso made up for the umpiring mistake with a game-tying two-run shot to center field for No. 11 on the season. Brett Baty continued the inning with a single up the middle, and Jared Young took Cannon deep to the right-field stands for another two-run homer to give the Mets an early 4-0 lead.

Young, a British Columbia native who played for three different colleges and spent seven seasons in the minors before playing for the Doosan Bears in South Korea last season, hit his fourth career major league homer and his first since September 2009 with the Chicago Cubs.

The Mets (34-21) loaded the bases and batted around before Cannon retired leadoff hitter Francisco Lindor for the third out.

That bases-loaded groundout would nearly come back to haunt the Mets later in the game, after Jose Butto gave up two runs in the top of the seventh, bringing the White Sox to within one.

But left-hander Jared Shuster gave up three straight singles with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, and Lindor drove in an insurance run to get some separation from the Sox.

Right-hander Tylor Megill pitched into the sixth inning, but loaded the bases with two outs. Left-hander Jose Castillo came in and got the third to preserve the win for Megill (4-4), who held the White Sox to two earned runs on four hits, walked four and struck out six over 5 2/3 innings. Right-hander Reed Garrett converted his second save of the season.

Cannon also went 5 2/3, giving up five earned runs on nine hits for the loss (2-6).