Cant the catcher block off the plate if he receives the ball well before the player gets there. I dont think you have to give the runner any chance to get the plate if its not going to be a close play. Catcher should have been down and sealing the plate off. If Pearce makes any contact at all he should be out. If you're gonna make it so that the catcher has to give the runner the plate on a bang bang play then you have to give the defense the out when the catcher is there with the ball waiting for the runner to arrive.
I was talking about failed challenge re: Caleb, not the successful challenge re: Pearce... but, yeah, you're right. The C on the Pearce play screwed up by not doing what you said... but I think that's mainly because the new rule has half of everybody confused...
The rule started out simple and easy to understand, but they screwed it up. The idea was to quit making plays at the plate different from from plays elsewhere... but they did a crappy job of explaining the rule and then calling it correctly. What they should have done is tell everybody (including the umps) that the only thing the rule means is that plays at the plate are just like plays at 2B. That's it, that's all there is to it. But they didn't do that. Instead, they told the umps God-knows-what, and the umps starting calling screwy things.
My favorite was when they called blocking on a C who was standing right on the 3B line waiting for a throw while the runner was still closer to 3B than he was to the plate. If the C had just stood elsewhere, then stepped over when the ball got there, it would have been fine. Either way, the runner was properly dead... but because the C stood in the right place too soon, the runner got called safe and the run scored... which was nuts.
The way Buck and John Russell decided to handle it last year was right: stand behind the plate or straddle the 3B line, but keep the play in front of you and make the runner slide between your legs... but I think one of MLB's stupid rule "clarifications" banned that... I think the C is now supposed to start out in front the plate, which is the wrong place, and do so for no good reason... I hope I'm wrong about that...