Dodgers insist third-base coach interfered before winning run scored

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants have sold out a National League-record 336 consecutive regular-season games at AT&T Park, and the Los Angeles Dodgers have to be wondering whether the umpires might be a little caught up in the excitement of it all.

Dodgers manager Don Mattingly, who already was miffed at what he saw as a missed catcher's interference call during Tuesday's game, was fuming after Giants third-base coach Roberto Kelly made contact with pinch runner Gregor Blanco while holding him up -- just a few minutes prior to Blanco scoring the winning run in San Francisco's 3-2 victoryWednesday night.

Rule 7.09 (h) states that the runner should be out if, "In the judgment of the umpire, the base coach at third base, or first base, by touching or holding the runner, physically assists him in returning or leaving third base or first base."

Blanco insisted he had already stopped before running into Kelly.

"It wasn't like he stopped me. I was stopping on third,'' Blanco said. "I don't feel he was stopping me at all.''

Replays showed Kelly made contact with Blanco just beyond third base. Mattingly said that when he went on the field to argue, the umpire, Fieldin Culbreth, told him he didn't see Kelly make contact with Blanco, who scored onJoe Panik'ssacrifice fly.

"Don came out and asked me did I see him grab him? I told him, 'No, I did not see him grab him,'" Culbreth said. "There ends up being contact, but the rule is pretty specific in the fact that he had to touch and physically grab him and assist him in returning to the base. That did not happen."

The Dodgers didn't see it that way. Pitcher Brandon McCarthy tweeted a photo of Culbreth with his back to the action near third base with the caption, "You had one job."

"That's what I've been taught, that the third-base coach is not allowed to block the runner from going on," Mattingly said. "It's obviously interference, and they missed the call, obviously. I don't know who's supposed to be watching, but they weren't watching."

Mattingly said he would like to see replay expanded so the league can review interference plays.

Dodgers pitcher J.P. Howell, who made the pitch thatBrandon Beltlined into left field for a ground-ball single, said he didn't see Kelly holding Blanco.

"They still got the hits they needed," Howell said. "That would have been luck. It would have been nice to get him out the right way instead of the cheap way, relying on luck."