In case you missed it last night, the A’s were down to their final out and what appeared to be a game-tying home run was ruled a double, despite the umpire crew going to instant replay and upholding their original call.

All replays show that the ball hit the railing behind the wall. That is a home run. Angel Hernandez, the crew chief, says it was inconclusive. But it was very conclusive.

Here’s MLB’s statement on the matter via Joe Torre.

“By rule, the decision to reverse a call by use of instant replay is at the sole discretion of the crew chief. In the opinion of Angel Hernandez, who was last night’s crew chief, there was not clear and convincing evidence to overturn the decision on the field. It was a judgment call, and as such, it stands as final.

“Home and away broadcast feeds are available for all uses of instant replay, and they were available to the crew last night. Given what we saw, we recognize that an improper call was made. Perfection is an impossible standard in any endeavor, but our goal is always to get the calls right. Earlier this morning, we began the process of speaking with the crew to thoroughly review all the circumstances surrounding last night’s decision.”

MLB admitted that the wrong call was made. They admitted that all available replays were there for the crew. With that in mind, how could the wrong call be upheld?

I mean, with the evidence so clear, how could MLB allow this to stand? Hundreds of missed calls are made in baseball. I understand that. But those usually are bang-bang plays at first base or things of that nature. Those can’t be reviewed. However, this situation went to replay. The sole purpose of replay is to allow the call to be right.

It would have been nice to have seen this call reversed and the game resume. But I knew it wasn’t going to happen. Instead, I want some kind of punishment to all four members of the umpire crew. All four of them messed up, but it was ultimately Hernandez that allowed it to happen.

Hopefully a punishment is sent out to the crew. It has to be that way.

As for now, MLB has shown that they are still behind in replay. Getting it wrong when it’s so obvious doesn’t work. Until there is accountability, costing a team the chance to win a game will eventually bite back.

The A’s won the division last year by one game. Every game matters and MLB can’t allow these kinds of things to happen.