Posted By Jeff Fletcher on July 21, 2010 1:56 pm

I was discussing last night’s mound-visit stuff with Marty Lurie, one of the hosts on the Giants radio network, and he made a point that the umpires may have bungled that stuff, too. At first I didn’t agree with him, but now I do. (As does a major league official who spoke to Fox’s Ken Rosenthal.) Here are the relevant portions of Rule 8.06:

(b) A second trip to the same pitcher in the same inning will cause this pitcher’s automatic removal;

(c) The manager or coach is prohibited from making a second visit to the mound while the same batter is at bat,

snip

In a case where a manager has made his first trip to the mound and then returns the second time to the mound in the same inning with the same pitcher in the game and the same batter at bat, after being warned by the umpire that he cannot return to the mound, the manager shall be removed from the game and the pitcher required to pitch to the batter until he is retired or gets on base. After the batter is retired, or becomes a base runner, then this pitcher must be removed from the game. The manager should be notified that his pitcher will be removed from the game after he pitches to one hitter, so he can have a substitute pitcher warmed up.

The substitute pitcher will be allowed eight preparatory pitches or more if in the umpire’s judgment circumstances justify.

So what’s all that mean? If you look at the difference between parts b and c, it doesn’t say what happens if you make two visits with the same hitter up — it says you can’t. And in the explanation that follows, it clearly says what happens if you do. The manager should be tossed and the pitcher should face that hitter and then be removed from the game. So Don Mattingly should have been ejected and then Jonathan Broxton forced to leave after facing Andres Torres.

But Mattingly is also to blame here, because he blew it twice. Not only did he make that second visit, but then he was unaware of this part of the rule, or else he’d have made a bigger stink and protested the game right there. That’s the type of protest that could be upheld. You never know. It’s worth a shot.