Tribe protests Saturday's 7-4 loss to Baltimore

CLEVELAND (AP) -- Strange, strange things are happening at Jacobs Field, baseball's theater of the absurd.
We're not even out of April, and it's already been a weird season at the corner of Ontario and Carnegie.
The Cleveland Indians have had four games at the Jake postponed by a freakish April snowstorm, forcing the club to move a three-game "home" series to Milwaukee. Also, the team won its oft-delayed opener with just one hit -- a first-inning double -- to become the first squad since 1952 to win a game with their only hit coming in their first at-bat.
The wackiest event, though, happened Saturday night when umpires awarded a run to the Baltimore Orioles -- three innings after initially waving it off. The Tribe lost 7-4.
Here's a recap:
The Orioles had just taken a 2-1 lead in the third on Miguel Tejada's RBI single. With one out, Nick Markakis on third base and Tejada at first, Ramon Hernandez hit a sinking liner to center field.
Cleveland's Grady Sizemore made a diving catch, popped up and threw to first in time to get Tejada for an inning-ending double play. Markakis, however, tagged up and scored well before Tejada was out at first.
Here's where it gets interesting.
Baltimore's run should have counted, but it was disallowed by plate umpire Marvin Hudson and the inning ended with the Orioles up 2-1, not 3-1.
Changes ruling
Fast forward three innings:
Veteran umpire Ed Montague calls scorekeeper Chad Broski and tells him to add a run for the Orioles, giving them a 3-2 lead. Indians manager Eric Wedges protests the game, arguing that the run can't be counted later.
"I don't blame Eric for protesting the call since it was our screw up," Montague said. "But we can't take away a run on my screw up. Eric was great about it. He understood, but he had to protest."
On Sunday, the Indians prepared paperwork to submit to Major League Baseball, which will rule on their protest.
"We are filing a formal protest, supported by video and statements to uphold our beliefs," general manager Mark Shapiro said. "Our point of view is not that a mistake was made, but that the score was changed retroactively, after baseball had been played."
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