quick question for anyone who watched today's game

[BT]

I was at the game, and as soon as Lopez threw a "pickoff" attempt to the second basemen standing 15 feet from second, I started to look in the dugout to see if Lou was going to argue it was a balk. He did, but the ump disagreed. Did Len or Bob explain why that wasn't a balk? I'll fully admit I'm very shaky on balk rules, but I thought the player had to be covering the base when the pitcher threw to him.

[Brock]

I thought that rule applied only to 1B.

[Kid]

The way they made it sound, the player doesn't have to be on the bag, but only has to be moving towards the bag (I think the player does have to be on the bag at 1st). Even though Johnson wasn't moving towards 2B when the pitcher made the throw, he was basically pulled towards 2B in order to make the catch, so apparently that's why it wasn't a balk, but it wasn't entirely clear.

[Fella]

I'm not sure if its an actual rule or just one of those accepted unwritten rules, but umps tend to be MUCH more strict about that type of stuff with runners on 1B. If that same thing happened at first, I guarantee you it would have been a balk. I guess since runners are not normally held on at 2nd and infielders are sneaking behind the runner, etc. they are more lenient, or maybe the rules are actually different, I'm not sure, not even Bob was sure and he was a big league manager obviously. I immediately thought it might be a balk when it happened, but I guess not.

[Runnys]

Ron and Pat didn't quite know what the call should have been either. Pat said that he thought it should have been a balk, but Ron said it was borderline.....one of those 50/50 calls by the ump.