Phillies third baseman Maikel Franco got the benefit of the doubt from home plate umpire Will Little, scoring the first run of Thursday afternoon’s game in Los Angeles without ever actually touching home plate. Franco drew a one-out walk against Clayton Kershaw and moved up to second on a single from Nick Williams. With two outs, Jorge Alfaro lined a single to center field, bringing Franco towards the plate. As you can see in the following video, Franco didn’t come close to touching the plate, but got credit for it anyway.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts didn’t challenge the call, so Franco got away with one. How Little missed that is mind-boggling.
