Nick Mingione questions umpire decision after incredible home plate play by Alabama

Kentucky baseball coach Nick Mingione fought back the urge to publicly criticize a major umpire decision during their matchup with Alabama in the first round of the SEC Baseball Tournament. The bottom of the second inning was full of fun and drama after a leadoff double by Kentucky catcher Devin Burkes. Burkes arrived on second base after aggressive base running instead of settling for a single — and celebrated the move by rocking his hips in celebration.

From there, a failed sacrifice bunt attempt to advance Burkes almost ended in a double play, until the throw to second was missed and Burkes advanced to third base anyways on the error. The next batter popped a ball to right field to let Burkes tag up — only to get thrown out by a missile from Alabama’s Andrew Pinckney.

Nick Mingione upset at umpire ruling on play at the plate

The following play at the plate was a fairly easy catch and tag for the inning-ending double play, but Mingione and Kentucky fans wanted the umpires to review the Alabama catcher’s positioning on the tag. According to Mingione, the plate was blocked even before the throw was caught and his frustration was obvious during a quick on-field interview after the inning.

“I just wanted to make sure that our guy had a lane to slide and that the plate wasn’t blocked? That’s all. And obviously I can’t [talk about it],” explained a frustrated Mingione.

The broadcast crew picked up on his stress at the call, and promised to not lead him into criticizing the officials — although they did ask him to clarify what case he made to the umpire.

“It’s a very basic rule in college baseball that you have space to go, correct?”

“Correct,” was all Mingione would add.

“So your argument was that it wasn’t just the throw that took him into the line, that he was there prior too?”

“That’s what I was saying,” finished Mingione.

The game’s officials did review the play at the plate, and confirmed the call that the runner was out. This took an incredible scoring chance away from the Wildcats and left the game tied at 0-0 heading into the third inning.