What happens when a wild pitch from the bullpen sails onto the field, confusing a base runner who thinks its the actual ball in play? Nothing, it turns out.

This baseball oddity happened Tuesday night in Cleveland, when Indians catcher Yan Gomes hit a double to right field. As his ball hit the wall, another accidentally sailed in from the bullpen. Evidently, a bullpen fastball from Reds pitcher Jumbo Diaz had flown over the catcher’s mitt of Nilson Antigua.

With the bullpen ball skittering toward the infield, Bruce picked up the real ball, threw it the cutoff man, who threw it to shortstop Zack Cozart standing on second base. The throw was too late to get Gomes and the play seemed over. But on third base, lead runner David Murphy overran the bag, likely because he saw the other ball sitting in the outfield and assumed it was live. With that ball standing still, Cozart threw the real one and nailed Murphy at third.

Cozart explained his take on the situation after the game (all quotes via Fox Sports Ohio):

“I looked up and I was halfway looking over there and I saw Murphy inching off the bag. I didn’t know what he was doing. I had the ball. I’m looking at him and he kept getting off. I kind of feel bad for Murphy because he thought for sure that the ball was just laying out in the grass out there and I had the ball in my glove.”

Murphy blamed himself:

“As a player you are taught two things — listen to your base coach and find the ball. My base coach is saying ‘right here, right here’ but as a player you don’t want to completely rely on the guy. You use him for help but try to play the game and use your instincts and then I see the ball and think I can make it. Obviously the timing of it and everything was crazy and bizarre. The situation was unfortunate; no one has seen anything like that before.”

Though Indians manager Terry Francona argued the call, his beef was with the rule itself, not the ruling. Since play can be stopped until the conclusion of action, the umpires were correct in ignoring the second ball on the field. That seems like a massive oversight in a sport with an arcane rule book that contains precedent for halting play based on where a ball goes (ie, ground-rule doubles, hitting the rafters in Tampa).

The play killed the Indians rally. Instead of being down 6-2 with no outs and men on second and third, Cleveland was down 6-2 with one out and only a man on second. The Tribe would go on to lose, 9-2.

saw the other ball roll through the infield and assumed it was the live ball. But the actual ball in play was being held by the second baseman, who then rifled it to third to get out Murphy.