Needless to say, there are some kinks to be worked out in the replay system and the new rule about home plate collisions.

A complicated issue arose in Tuesday night's Astros-Blue Jays game. Here's the play in question: Eighth inning, L.J. Hoes on third, Dexter Fowler hits a trickler back to the pitcher, play at home plate.

OK, it's a bang-bang play and Hoes is called out. But did Blue Jays catcher Dioner Navarro block the plate before he had the ball? Rule 7.13 states "The catcher may not block the path of the runner attempting to score unless he has possession of the ball." The overhead camera angle clearly shows Navarro standing in front of the plate before he receives the throw from pitcher Brett Cecil. On the other hand, once Navarro did catch the ball, he does sort of sidestep out of the way and appears to give Hoes just enough of a lane to slide to a corner of the plate. But I can see this either way, since Hoes certainly didn't have a path to the entire width of the plate. Rule 7.13 also states that "all calls are based on the umpire's judgment."

Anyway, Astros manager Bo Porter came out to discuss the call, and this is where things apparently got even more confusing. According to Evan Drellich's blog at the Houston Chronicle, Porter asked that both the tag itself and Navarro blocking the plate be reviewed. But Porter said he didn't challenge the play:

"That wasn’t a challenge. It was after the sixth inning, so it was more to the umpires' discretion. One, I felt like [Navarro] blocked the plate before he had the ball. And two, I thought Hoes cut underneath the tag. I felt like he tagged him a little high. I thought his foot may have gotten in there.

"After the sixth inning, you know, it's to the umpires' discretion. They can decide to go look at it. Now, I asked them to go look at it, and because it's the seventh to the ninth inning, they decided that it's a close enough play that they should go look at it."

Except the umpires viewed it as Porter issuing a challenge, since he hadn't used his earlier in the game. And they reviewed only whether Hoes had scored before Navarro applied the tag -- not whether Navarro had blocked the plate.

Did the umpires make the correct call? Navarro did tag Hoes in time, which the replay confirmed. According to the rules, blocking the plate -- since it's a judgment call -- cannot be challenged by the manager. The umpires can check the replay on blocking the plate at their discretion but did not do so in this case. It appears they got the technical aspect of reviewing the play correct; it had to be considered an official challenge by Porter, and they didn't have to review the block since it was a judgment call.

In the end, this type of play at home plate remains a good old-fashioned judgment call by the umpires. There's a gray area that I think is ultimately unavoidable. There are going to be obvious cases of the catcher blocking the plate illegally at some point, but I don't think this was one, so I reluctantly say the umps got it right.