In the 6th inning of Friday's Toronto-Baltimore game, F1 Fernando Abad raised his right forearm into R2 Lourdes Gurriel as Gurriel attempted to score. Umpires called obstruction, but was it more? Article: https://www.closecallsports.com/2021/...

It turns out the interpretation of this play—beyond obstruction type 2 (or Type B), which all rulesets agree on—depends on whether the play occurs in high school, college, or professional baseball.

In high school, NFHS Rule 3-3-1 would likely steer umpires toward a ruling of malicious contact, in which case the offending player would be ejected. NCAA 2-31 defines a flagrant collision in terms of a runner's malicious action, but umpires at that level too could employ common sense and deem that if the pitcher's actions were of a flagrant nature—fighting, for instance—disqualification could be appropriate.

Professional baseball, however, has no such rule on its books. OBR does not include the word "malicious" whatsoever and its unsporting or excessive collision rules pertain rather exclusively to plays at home plate with the catcher-runner interaction, or attempting to break up a play at second by evading the bona fide slide rule.

In other words, MLB seems to allow this unless umpires were to deem the pitcher specifically punched the runner or committed some other assaultive offense.

Could this have started earlier in the game? In the 2nd inning, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde yelled at Toronto pitcher Robbie Ray, who eventually returned the words, as Ray was on the mound.

Whereas NFHS and NCAA both contain provisions related to bench jockeying or unsportsmanlike interaction between members of opposing teams, OBR once again is more permissive and sets an unsportsmanlike conduct bar significantly higher than the lower levels.

At these lower levels, Hyde's unsporting conduct toward Ray may have necessitated umpire intervention, but at the Major League level, it would appear Park Avenue's stance is, for the most part, "let them fight. It's better for ratings."