Report: MLB Told Cubs, Pirates Anthony Rizzo's Slide at Home Was Interference

Major League Baseball reportedly has ruled umpires should have called interference on Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo when he slid into home plate and took out the leg of Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Elias Diaz on a slide on Monday. 

Jesse Rogers of ESPN Chicago reported MLB officials informed both teams Tuesday.

Umpires ruled Rizzo's slide was clean on the field and upon review. Rizzo appeared to go out of his way to hit Diaz's leg on the slide but touched home plate, which likely led to the umpire interpretation.

The slide caused Diaz to throw a potential double-play ball into right field, allowing two Cubs runs to score. The Pirates catcher also suffered a minor injury on the play but stayed in the game after being down on the field for an extended period. Manager Clint Hurdle was thrown from the game for arguing with umpires.

"My position and my question is that, at the end of the day, we've put a rule in at home plate to protect the catchers," Hurdle told reporters. "Everybody is going to see the play and say this is the play you can make on the catcher on his most vulnerable position. He's completely exposed. He's completely out in front of the plate. He has no defense whatsoever."

"In my personal opinion, I don't think it was a good slide," Diaz said through an interpreter. "I understand that there's old-school baseball, but we're not in old-school baseball anymore. There are new rules and things we've submitted to, and even us as catchers have mentally prepared ourselves for, and I don't agree that that's a legal slide."

Cubs manager Joe Maddon and Rizzo defended the play, saying it was just good, hard baseball.

"You have to go in and break the double play up," Rizzo said. "I'm not trying to hurt anyone. Plays like that are scary, but at the same time, you have to play hard."