Cardinals got screwed out of challenge because of a painfully A’s moment

The St. Louis Cardinals lost a chance to challenge an out call at second base in the top of the seventh inning thanks to an odd encounter between manager Oli Marmol and an A's security guard.

Brendan Donovan was ruled out after being tagged at second base, but the Cardinals believed he may have ultimately been safe, so they attempted to challenge the call.

However, a security guard walked right behind Marmol while he was trying to tell the umpires he wanted to challenge. While the security guard was in Marmol's vicinity, the time to challenge the play had expired. Marmol had a brief exchange with the security guard before pleading his case to the umpires.

Oli Marmol unable to challenge after security guard interferes

This ultimately proved to be some dumb luck for the A's. Had the guard not interfered, the Cardinals likely would have been able to challenge the out call and possibly been able to get it overturned.

But because of this fluke incident with Marmol and the security guard, something that could only happen with the A's at a place such as the Oakland Coliseum, they were unable to challenge. Fortunately for the Cardinals, it didn't impact the game too heavily, as they went on to win by a final score of 3-1 to take a lead in the series.

Still, this complete fluke did cost the Cardinals a chance to potentially get the call reversed at second base, which clearly frustrated Marmol and led to the two of them exchanging a few words. Sadly, the umpiring crew wasn't willing to give Marmol and the Cardinals any grace for this mishap.

The security guard fortunately seemed to take responsibility for his mistake, but that didn't save the Cardinals from missing their chance to challenge the play and get the call right.