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As you’ve no doubt heard by now, in the 10th inning, with bases loaded, Alex Kirilloff was up to bat when home umpire Phil Cuzzi called two balls well outside the strike zone as strikes. Kirilloff ended up striking out. The calls were so egregious that even the Dodgers announcers, the beneficiaries of the bad calls, spoke out.
Adding to the frustration was a questionable David Peralta RBI double down the first-base line that the Twins were not allowed to challenge. Further analysis shows that it was almost certainly a foul ball.
After the game, the Twitter account Umpire Scorecards published its grade for Cuzzi, whose umpiring resulted in a jaw-dropping 1.39 run advantage for the Dodgers. Typical figures for this stat are in the decimals; hardly ever full runs.
After the game, a chorus of frustrated Twins fans expressed dismay at the decidedly unfair outcome of the game. Regarding the Peralta double, manager Rocco Baldelli said, "We had other opportunities to separate and find ways to win the game on top of the things that we were able to do, but late in the game, when you’re just given a double on a ball that’s foul, I mean, that bothers you, yes."
I thought Twins fan Shayla put the helpless frustration of the whole situation perfectly:
Other fans had one message in mind: bring on the robot umps now. And pretty soon, this will likely be a reality, and hopefully fans like Shayla won't have to feel that poignant frustration.
Twins Daily has extensively covered robot umps, most recently in a piece this past January highlighting that MLB will use two forms of the automatic strike zone (ABS), the challenge system and the fully automatic system, at all AAA ballparks in 2023.
Star Tribune columnist LaVelle E. Neal III did a piece last week on using the automatic strike zone at St. Paul Saints games. Several days earlier, Twins Daily had an article on the ABS system and how it would be used.
Triple-A plays six-game series, and MLB is testing out both types of ABS during each series. “For the first three games of a six-game series, the ABS calls balls and strikes. For the next three games, the umpire calls the game, with each team given three challenges. Managers aren’t allowed to challenge pitches, but the catcher, pitcher, or hitter can ask for one. The ABS is then used as the final arbiter,” Neal wrote. He noted that the first challenge in CHS field history occurred on May 5 (here is the Twins Daily Minor League Report which includes this example), where Nashville’s Andruw Monasterio challenged a low pitch by Simeon Woods Richardson by tapping his helmet, and the pitch was ruled a strike by the ABS, much to the crowd and team’s raucous delight.
Despite MLB making no decisions on the use of ABS in the majors, it’s difficult to imagine that it won’t happen sometime soon: Triple-A is the last frontier for testing rule changes, and it seems in recent years that everything that makes it to Triple-A ends up in the majors too: this year it was the larger bases, pitch clock, and the shift ban. Furthermore, according to Neal’s piece, the pitch clock is popular among Saints players and coaches. “You get less complaining in the dugout because there is less to argue about. You watch the games on TV, and you want the umpires to be right. When a pitch is borderline, it’s a really hard job as an umpire back there to get everything right,” Gardenhire said.
Whether or not MLB implements the challenge system or the full ABS would also need to be decided before hitting the majors. My take: the challenge system is the perfect happy medium. I am ok with there being some variation in umpire strike zones. Still, Monday’s game perfectly illustrates the pressing need to have a way of eliminating the most egregious, game-changing calls. A challenge system would have reversed both of Kirilloff’s calls, which the Twins absolutely would have challenged, assuming they still have challenges to use. Hopefully, the Twins would have scored in that one-out, bases-loaded situation with a sacrifice fly to the outfield. Now that the unjustified strikeout made it two outs, it was a completely different, game-defining situation.
The ABS would not have saved the day regarding the Peralta double/foul ball. Hopefully this game sparks some discussion of increasing the number of situations in which a team can challenge a play. The Dodgers broadcast explained that teams can't challenge balls in front of the base umpire, and Peralta’s ball first hit the ground in front of home plate.
To those who stayed up late on Monday night, it’s hard to argue that something doesn’t need to be done to eliminate bad calls: the stakes are simply too high, especially in game-changing situations, the postseason, and the rise of sports gambling. But disappointed Twins fans can take heart: hopefully, these egregious missed calls will likely soon be a thing of the past.
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Did you stay up late on Monday night to watch this extra-inning battle? How did you feel coming away from the game? Do you think ABS would solve a lot of frustration? If so, which of the two kinds of ABS do you prefer? Have you noticed it in use at a Saints game? Leave a COMMENT below.
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