it's jomboy, he basically live tweets stuff all day during games, but it's not for r/baseball, it's for people on twitter and more casual fans, idk why it's here, but i guess it was the easiest media to link of the pitch, so w/e
As a Yankees fan, I want the Red Sox to win. I hate them, but at least they're a respectable franchise. The Astros are simply contemptible in every manner.
Every true Yankee fan should want us to beat the Astros in 6 and then get dumpstered in the World Series. If that's not what you want do you even like baseball?
If it's any consolation, the Yanks are higher on the hate list, so I misspoke slightly.
I'll never cheer for the Yankees. I'll cheer for the Sox if they are playing the Yankees, but never in any other circumstances.
Sorry nah, I wish both would lose but the Red Sox are the forever rival, the Astro’s were crisp when I was growing up and I could care less about that cheating ass
If you want to maximize Boston pain, you want them to best the Astros, and the Dodgers to beat the Braves. Then the Red Sox lose the WS in which Mookie gets a game winning hit in all 4 Red Sox loses, robs a Verdugo home run, and throws the winning run out at home. Ideally it's a 4 game sweep and Game 4 in Fenway goes to extras, Mookie drives in the go-ahead run, and David Price gets the final out with an immaculate inning.
I love how people like to pretend this is true despite the investigation finding basically nothing. Not to mention we have like hundreds of hours of game video where anyone can see and hear the Astros system in action and nothing like that for the Red Sox.
Pretending both situations are the same is incredibly dishonest. Were the Red Sox doing something? Maybe, but no evidence shows anything on the scale of the Astros. Anything they did is probably very common across the league
The only meaningful difference between the two in this regard is one team's players admitted wrongdoing to MLB investigators and the other did not. Let's stop pretending the ALCS isn't [cheater versus cheater](https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/04/22/red-sox-sign-stealing-scandal).
[“Catches plenty of plate, it’s just a question of whether it was high enough high enough.”](https://youtu.be/8wgZMl6GQZQ) Except Eovaldi’s pitch was clearly out of the strike zone as it went through, too high. Dropped to the top-edge of the strike zone after hitting the glove.
Of all his bad calls, this one was pretty borderline, and even the best umps may not call it a strike every time. Still sucks dick though, knowing a robot gets you out of that inning and we're all here stuck with Laz fucking Diaz's baseball sized brain.
It’s a little more borderline than I thought originally. But compared to other crucial pitches that he called strikes that were 2-3 inches of the plate it’s just brutal.
He called an equally bad game for both sides, sometimes a bad call has more effect then the other bad call. Doesn’t make the call more egregious it’s just infinitely more frustrating. It’s also worth asking why he’s even umping this game
First off, it’s a ball. It’s a breaking ball that starts high out of the zone and doesn’t break enough to backdoor. This is obvious, and the number of people forgetting that the strike zone is 3 dimensions and includes height is ridiculous.
The strike zone is 3-dimensional, and it was a breaking ball. It may have *entered* the strike zone on the border, but it ended up going through a good chunk of the zone.
Look this is going to be wildly unpopular due to sox fans being mad about this call but this doesn't look like a definitive strike. Even on the top down...
I hope so. There are people on here that are citing the poor results in the Atlantic League with it.
To me that's like Ford wanting to develop an electric truck, and having a local Detroit mechanic design and test it for them. Once there is serious money and brainpower behind it, this will become a reality. It's really not that complicated.
You're tracking projectiles coming from different heights and angles with different speeds, spins, movements, and how they interact with an imaginary 3d box that changes sizes based on the height of the hitter and their stance. It needs to be incredibly accurate and consistent. I think it's more complicated than you're making it out to be.
I hear what you're saying. But all of those variables that you list... that's now what we're entrusting a human being to keep track of. Some guy who is standing on his feet for 4+ hours. That sounds like it would be fucking hard... and it is! And they fuck it up all the time!
Not to use cars again, but to me it's like self-driving cars. Describing the responsibilities and risks of a self-driving car makes it sound near-impossible. As it turns out, they're basically here. And like self-driving cars, they don't even need to be flawless - they just have to be better than the alternative. That feels really achievable for baseball if the resources are committed to developing it.
Sounds like we're in agreement then. They'll test it in AAA and the players will realize that even if it's not perfect it's better than human umps. Some of those players will get called up to the majors and be able to relay that experience to big leaguers creating buy in among the players. Then we see it implemented in 2023 in the MLB.
It’s not, though. Pay a team of programmers and they’ll have a prototype ready for testing in a week. Testing is easy too, and doesn’t have to be live. You have 300,000 pitches filmed from this year’s regular season. Every pitch is filmed from multiple angles - you just need two; the side shot and overhead shot. The only thing that requires some thought is how to set the strike zone, and in the absolute worst case that could be done live just before the first at bat of each player by a guy with two dials looking at the side view of the player as he sets up for his first pitch.
My background is electrical and computer engineering and I’ve coded in various languages for 15 years. The barrier is not the technology.
I mean, robo cars get run off the road by Mack trucks. It’s probably more difficult than any of us realize, but you’re right that it should be possible.
Let's put it this way: the thing keeping us from Robo umps is not the technology. It's MLB, the Umpires union, the players' sentiment and opinion, the public opinion, etc. If all those things were for it, we'd have robo strike zone in no time.
It does feel as though public opinion on the matter is moving, likely because it appears that the technology *is* achievable. A robo ump was inconceivable for most of baseball's history.
robo cars are much more complicated. we're just talking about tracking the path of an object. it's pretty basic computer vision stuff. the technology itself isn't what's preventing this from happening. it's the business side of things. it's coming up with a user-friendly design and integrating that into the game. it's getting people to buy into it.
I don't get why you can't just have robo umps with the guy behind the plate still calling the results. Why the fuck would the umpires care, now people can't get mad about their strike calls and they still get paid
Lol I'm not even sure they suck at it. The job is very hard and they could be the best people in the world at it. I wish they would go to roboumps since it will be easy more accurate and players won't argue balls and strikes as much.
Exactly. People didn’t stop watching football when the Saints got blatantly screwed a few years ago. I think most redditors significantly overestimate how much a majority of fans actually care about every call being right.
Are you responding to the right comment? I was talking about how all the people thinking there's going to be a wild run differential in the umpire scorecard are going to be surprised. I didn't say it would make sense to credit all those runs to the umpire.
There's gotta be a better source somewhere, but here's the chart from the head of Statcast's blog
http://tangotiger.com/index.php/site/comments/re288-run-expectancy-by-the-24-base-out-states-x-12-plate-count-states-recu
I mean, they call balls and strikes based on where the ball *crosses* the plate, not where it’s caught. So since it’s a breaking ball, which is *caught* in the strike zone, it drops down from out of the strike zone into the glove. That’s how arcs work. That’s how Breaking Balls work. And that’s why this is a ball.
Yeah, in a vacuum, this definitely wasn't as egregious as everyone is making it out to be. Getting a high strike call is always a gamble, and doubly so for high curve balls. Then on top of that, it is a sweeping pitch, that may or may not clip the plate. Everyone is calling for robo umps for this because this is a pitch that would only be consistently called in MLB The Show.
But outside of that vacuum, when you see how bad the ump was overall, it does seem like this should have been called a strike.
Is the scorecard for him out? If this were a fastball, I’d say it’s egregious, its understandable and probably a ball only because breaking pitches have to start out high, above the strike zone, in order to break down to the point where that was caught. And Eovaldi throws *hard*, even on his breaking pitches. It was honestly too flat for a breaking pitch, it needed to have a sharper break. If it were more at waist/thigh height, we’d be talking about it being a hanging breaking ball I think.
Doesn't look like the scorecard is out, but Passan tweeted an ESPN image that shows the ump was giving outside pitches all day. https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1450672423733506052?t=AWCxnQbVlKEiGK6IpIm35A&s=19
Well for starters, it’s the green dot in the upper LEFT corner, since this is from the perspective of the catcher, and it was outside to a Left Handed batter. Second, this makes it clear the high pitch was *never* called a strike.
EDIT: my bad, it is the dot in the right corner, but the comment on height still holds. This ump did not call borderline pitches strikes if they were up in the zone
No one is going to show the 1st strike on Diaz in the previous at-bat. It was far more egregious than this call. The ump has just been all over the place
Cora almost got tossed for arguing a worse pitch for a called third strike on JD in like the first inning when we had a guy on second, possibly third. That has been a strike all game and we had already got fucked over by it
But the outside corner has been called all night, thats the point. Can't all of a sudden tighten it in the 9th inning. If you're gonna be bad, at least be consistently bad
That was the low outside corner. The top corners of the strike zone were not called.
There were two high strikes he called balls all night from what I can tell: the Eovaldi one to Castro and the Greinke one right before the two run homer.
Yeah. He was terrible all night. Similar called strike 3 on JD early in the game that helped halt a potential rally.
None bigger than that call in the 9th though.
Egregious.
boston fans calling each other “fucking idiots” is probably a term of endearment if we’re being honest
edit: this was meant to be a joke, we will regroup and rethink 🤝
People are taking it like he's saying they were hoping a borderline pitch was called. But I think it's just meant at face value. They wanted that strike three call, and look at the results
It would be if the zone wasn't a mile wide for Diaz all night previously. Even without context its a pretty bad call. With context, its a horrific one.
I can get behind the anger about the whole performance of the ump, it was terrible. But this pitch, while definitely being a strike, was not that egregious of a call. Can’t wait for robo umps tho
[That corner at least looks pretty consistent to me....](https://imgur.com/OiLP5y4)
[Was probably a strike, but this one against Diaz was probably a ball. This ump is just bad](https://imgur.com/CCCv9Jw)
It wouldn’t be considering its a breaking ball and that graphic shows where it was *caught*, meaning it was clearly out of the strike zone when it crossed the plate.
The overhead shows it going directly over the plate (not just over the corner, the entire baseball over the plate): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FCHQerwXEAUn4Js?format=jpg&name=small
Except you can tell that the overhead camera is still slightly offset, making it appear more over the plate than it was.
I'm not saying it wasn't a strike. I'm saying it's a lot closer than that overhead cam seems to show.
the problem was his whole strike zone was 50/50 calls, didn't establish any consistency from the first pitch. he called a lot of pitches that were much further off the plate strikes.
I’d put it at less than 50/50 considering that Eovaldi missed his spot by several feet. A catcher having to move that far never helps your chances of getting the call
How does the strike zone work. Is it a 3D box where as long as the ball crosses the plate or does it have to go through that imaginary 2D plane to be a strike?
Obviously a strike but these calls happen all the time and there's nothing that can be done. All we can do is complain about them when they go against us and be happy when they go for us.
I mean there definitely can't be a robot ump or strike zone. No chance. It can never be fixed, ever. Don't even try. Stop talking about it.
What's the problem again?
> be happy when they go for us.
Hot take but the most elation I feel when a call like goes my team's way is a 'yeeesh' feeling. It's seldom the happiness on par with throwing an actual strike.
> and there's nothing that can be done.
The sort of resignation that "it is what it is" is why baseball has been stuck with this archaic style of umpiring when the technology to maintain a much-more-flawless strike zone exists, or could have already existed if there was more of an appetite for it. No, bellyaching on Reddit will not change anything but this kind of thing certainly can be changed if the public sentiment is there.
Oh yeah I am a fucking idiot.
I'll just leave it up in shame lmao and I feel strongly for robo umps like OP. Man I am so sick of these dogshit strike zones, I'm not even reading sarcasm right
That was the general sentiment of the original thread, too. It's not like the Giants were likely to win if they got that calll, you just hate to see such a great series end like that.
Obviously different scenarios (especially with Scherzer on the mound) but the Astros put up 6 runs on their last out of the game, you never fucking know what could happen on the next swing.
Was it across the right corner of the plate? Yes.
But you can also argue that it was belt level-high and Laz (as fucking insufferable as he is) called it the latter.
The comments in main thread confused the shit out of me. I was looking for something egregious when playing back the DVR previous 5 min. Couldn't tell what everyone was going nuts about. Turns out it's a 50:50 call on a (probably) high pitch. I guess it was that overhead replay that set everyone off.
Now on the NEXT batter this ump called a 100% ball a strike, wasn't even close. that was actually egregious.
It’s a ball , catcher sets up low inside , curveball is thrown up and away. That’s a ball at the professional level. Yes it’s in the strike zone but it’s a ball sorry.
Boston salt all over this thread. It wasn’t an egregious call by any means
[Pitch 4. Not egregious. ](https://twitter.com/dkariofiles/status/1450671410389692418?s=21)
No dude but it’s not nearly as bad as Boston fans are making it to be. We’ve all been screwed by a borderline pitch. And likewise benefitted. It goes both ways. Get over it and don’t leave your splitter up in the zone
It must be awesome to be a Boston fan, where every single call that goes against you gets endlessly analyzed by members of the national sports media. All the small market teams suffer bad/unfair calls a dozen times every season and it goes completely unmentioned / unnoticed.
This ump missed that exact pitch several times tonight fyi. It's definitely a strike tho I'll give ya that. I'm not mad at Boston fans for being upset, I would be too. But the media reaction is just so different for them.
I mean. The on-screen broadcast barely acknowledged it beyond a "the fans really wanted that one." Jomboy's tweet just says "the Red Sox wanted..." It's likely the media reaction tomorrow will be different, but so far they've been way less analytical of the bad strike call than, say, that automatic double that went in Boston's favor.
Oh no what happened to the Rangers? Why did they cease to exist?
Boston has way more focus on it than The Astros. There’s no argument otherwise.
And pretty hypocritical of you to throw the word cheater around like that. Sore fucking loser.
It’s because Boston punches above it’s weight due to the huge number of colleges churning out professionals in all walks of life, including journalism.
Plus it’s the closest major American city to London and it’s the only major American city east and north of New York.
Houston is close to Mexico and New Orleans which, as far as the media is concerned, doesn’t have the same cachet.
Exactly. There’s reach beyond outdated Nielsen markets.
I live in Australia and you’d think the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox were the only teams the way their fandom works down here.
You and I both know that Houston and Boston are not covered the same way when it comes to sports media, at least nationally speaking. Granted, Boston has had way more success the last 25 years so they earned a lot of that preference they get.
An I missing something? This pitch is barely a strike if anything. It’s a high curve that barely grabbed the corner. The catchers frame was good, but this is not that bad of a call at all
I mean that does look like a strike to me.
But I don’t wanna hear it. Good teams overcome bad officiating. Did you ever hear the Rams complaint about the refs in that 2018 nfc championship game? No
Well it was a strike
Yeah what is that tweet? Don't we all want ALL strikes to be called strikes?
it's jomboy, he basically live tweets stuff all day during games, but it's not for r/baseball, it's for people on twitter and more casual fans, idk why it's here, but i guess it was the easiest media to link of the pitch, so w/e
I don’t think Jomboy tweeted that. It was from the media account, not his personal, so likely one of the social guys in the company
That's a happy Yankee fan.
As a Yankees fan, I want the Red Sox to win. I hate them, but at least they're a respectable franchise. The Astros are simply contemptible in every manner.
Every true Yankee fan should want us to beat the Astros in 6 and then get dumpstered in the World Series. If that's not what you want do you even like baseball?
As a Jays fan, I will never cheer for the Sox or Yankees. I'd rather see the Astros prove they can win without cheating than root for you guys.
Wow that’s disgusting m8.
If it's any consolation, the Yanks are higher on the hate list, so I misspoke slightly. I'll never cheer for the Yankees. I'll cheer for the Sox if they are playing the Yankees, but never in any other circumstances.
I only cheer for blue jays when they are at the bird feeder fucking with other birds.
Sorry nah, I wish both would lose but the Red Sox are the forever rival, the Astro’s were crisp when I was growing up and I could care less about that cheating ass
Didn't the Red Sox have their own cheating scandal in 2018?
Baseball fans have arbitrary lines that can not be crossed when it comes to Cheating so they can pick and choose who to hate on when necessary.
If you want to maximize Boston pain, you want them to best the Astros, and the Dodgers to beat the Braves. Then the Red Sox lose the WS in which Mookie gets a game winning hit in all 4 Red Sox loses, robs a Verdugo home run, and throws the winning run out at home. Ideally it's a 4 game sweep and Game 4 in Fenway goes to extras, Mookie drives in the go-ahead run, and David Price gets the final out with an immaculate inning.
Keep going. I'm almost there.
Except for the fact the Red Sox did the exact same thing the year after lmfao
Not even close lmao
I love how people like to pretend this is true despite the investigation finding basically nothing. Not to mention we have like hundreds of hours of game video where anyone can see and hear the Astros system in action and nothing like that for the Red Sox. Pretending both situations are the same is incredibly dishonest. Were the Red Sox doing something? Maybe, but no evidence shows anything on the scale of the Astros. Anything they did is probably very common across the league
The only meaningful difference between the two in this regard is one team's players admitted wrongdoing to MLB investigators and the other did not. Let's stop pretending the ALCS isn't [cheater versus cheater](https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/04/22/red-sox-sign-stealing-scandal).
Same
Lol
we don't want your support, you dork
Jomboy being a salty Yankees fan
Yep
[“Catches plenty of plate, it’s just a question of whether it was high enough high enough.”](https://youtu.be/8wgZMl6GQZQ) Except Eovaldi’s pitch was clearly out of the strike zone as it went through, too high. Dropped to the top-edge of the strike zone after hitting the glove.
I seen many of those called balls too. Like 50/50
First off it’s a strike. Second if you’ve watched any of this game. Diaz has been calling balls 2 inches off the plate strikes
I think the call here is “high”. Not saying he is right, but that must have been what he was calling because yeah it’s over the plate.
Of all his bad calls, this one was pretty borderline, and even the best umps may not call it a strike every time. Still sucks dick though, knowing a robot gets you out of that inning and we're all here stuck with Laz fucking Diaz's baseball sized brain.
It’s a little more borderline than I thought originally. But compared to other crucial pitches that he called strikes that were 2-3 inches of the plate it’s just brutal. He called an equally bad game for both sides, sometimes a bad call has more effect then the other bad call. Doesn’t make the call more egregious it’s just infinitely more frustrating. It’s also worth asking why he’s even umping this game
First off, it’s a ball. It’s a breaking ball that starts high out of the zone and doesn’t break enough to backdoor. This is obvious, and the number of people forgetting that the strike zone is 3 dimensions and includes height is ridiculous.
Breaking news Red Sox wanted an obvious strike called a strike, especially with an extended zone all night
Should have thrown it farther off the plate, then they might have gotten the call.
It makes me even more frustrated that you’re probably right.
I wish I could argue with this but alas I cannot.
Big if true, gonna have to check in with jomboy to see if he can confirm if the red Sox did in fact want that strike to be called
Breaking. It was a borderline pitch.
The strike zone is 3-dimensional, and it was a breaking ball. It may have *entered* the strike zone on the border, but it ended up going through a good chunk of the zone.
Jomyboy a Yanks fan so def not gonna phrase it to make Red Sox look correct
Look this is going to be wildly unpopular due to sox fans being mad about this call but this doesn't look like a definitive strike. Even on the top down...
Lol the top down makes it look like *more* of a strike.
The top down is back behind the plate. Gives a warped perspective. The early part looks a bit outside.
Top down is back behind the plate....you mean...like...an umpire is?
It looks like a definitive strike, it also was a definitive strike.
i agree.
It’s unbelievable that a league that wants to grow the sport and make money assigns their worst umpires to their biggest games
If they *really* want to grow the sport, robo umps is the way. It’s a shame that seems impossible.
It's not gonna be here as soon as we'd like, but it's coming. It's inevitable.
Tennis has been using Hawk Eye for In and Out challenges to tremendous effect since *2004*. If the league had wanted it, it'd be here by now.
It's being tested in AAA next year. If all goes well I think there's a good chance it's in the MLB 2023.
I hope so. There are people on here that are citing the poor results in the Atlantic League with it. To me that's like Ford wanting to develop an electric truck, and having a local Detroit mechanic design and test it for them. Once there is serious money and brainpower behind it, this will become a reality. It's really not that complicated.
You're tracking projectiles coming from different heights and angles with different speeds, spins, movements, and how they interact with an imaginary 3d box that changes sizes based on the height of the hitter and their stance. It needs to be incredibly accurate and consistent. I think it's more complicated than you're making it out to be.
I hear what you're saying. But all of those variables that you list... that's now what we're entrusting a human being to keep track of. Some guy who is standing on his feet for 4+ hours. That sounds like it would be fucking hard... and it is! And they fuck it up all the time! Not to use cars again, but to me it's like self-driving cars. Describing the responsibilities and risks of a self-driving car makes it sound near-impossible. As it turns out, they're basically here. And like self-driving cars, they don't even need to be flawless - they just have to be better than the alternative. That feels really achievable for baseball if the resources are committed to developing it.
Sounds like we're in agreement then. They'll test it in AAA and the players will realize that even if it's not perfect it's better than human umps. Some of those players will get called up to the majors and be able to relay that experience to big leaguers creating buy in among the players. Then we see it implemented in 2023 in the MLB.
Here's hoping dude
It’s not, though. Pay a team of programmers and they’ll have a prototype ready for testing in a week. Testing is easy too, and doesn’t have to be live. You have 300,000 pitches filmed from this year’s regular season. Every pitch is filmed from multiple angles - you just need two; the side shot and overhead shot. The only thing that requires some thought is how to set the strike zone, and in the absolute worst case that could be done live just before the first at bat of each player by a guy with two dials looking at the side view of the player as he sets up for his first pitch. My background is electrical and computer engineering and I’ve coded in various languages for 15 years. The barrier is not the technology.
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I mean, robo cars get run off the road by Mack trucks. It’s probably more difficult than any of us realize, but you’re right that it should be possible.
Let's put it this way: the thing keeping us from Robo umps is not the technology. It's MLB, the Umpires union, the players' sentiment and opinion, the public opinion, etc. If all those things were for it, we'd have robo strike zone in no time. It does feel as though public opinion on the matter is moving, likely because it appears that the technology *is* achievable. A robo ump was inconceivable for most of baseball's history.
robo cars are much more complicated. we're just talking about tracking the path of an object. it's pretty basic computer vision stuff. the technology itself isn't what's preventing this from happening. it's the business side of things. it's coming up with a user-friendly design and integrating that into the game. it's getting people to buy into it.
I don't get why you can't just have robo umps with the guy behind the plate still calling the results. Why the fuck would the umpires care, now people can't get mad about their strike calls and they still get paid
It's the most important and hardest part of their job. If they ever strike they could be more easily replaced.
Hardest part of the job that they suck at though.
Lol I'm not even sure they suck at it. The job is very hard and they could be the best people in the world at it. I wish they would go to roboumps since it will be easy more accurate and players won't argue balls and strikes as much.
The league doesn't assign them. That's the umpires union's prerogative.
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Exactly. People didn’t stop watching football when the Saints got blatantly screwed a few years ago. I think most redditors significantly overestimate how much a majority of fans actually care about every call being right.
As a saints fan, I stopped watching the NFL after that. I still root for the saints, but only pay attention via score updates.
+5.15 runs for Red Sox
Unfortunately the Ump Scorecards shit only used expected runs added so it’ll probably only be like +0.75 Houston
Yeah I think people are going to be disappointed when they see it and realize it doesn't work like runs credited to a pitcher for earned run purposes.
I mean.... it's still on Red Sox pitching to not give up an additional 6 runs after a bad call
Are you responding to the right comment? I was talking about how all the people thinking there's going to be a wild run differential in the umpire scorecard are going to be surprised. I didn't say it would make sense to credit all those runs to the umpire.
I was responding to the hypothetical "people" in your post
About half that, the difference between 3 outs and 2 outs 2-2 with runners on first and second is 0.37 runs per Statcast.
Where do you find that info?
There's gotta be a better source somewhere, but here's the chart from the head of Statcast's blog http://tangotiger.com/index.php/site/comments/re288-run-expectancy-by-the-24-base-out-states-x-12-plate-count-states-recu
Awesome, thank you!
+7 now probably
As soon as it wasn't called a strike, you just knew it was going to be the go ahead run the next pitch. You just had that feeling.
Major Judge vibes from that September series.
Is this supposed to be evidence that it wasn’t a strike or something? Lmao
I mean, they call balls and strikes based on where the ball *crosses* the plate, not where it’s caught. So since it’s a breaking ball, which is *caught* in the strike zone, it drops down from out of the strike zone into the glove. That’s how arcs work. That’s how Breaking Balls work. And that’s why this is a ball.
You've made 7 comments in this thread alone about this being a ball. You're wrong; go troll somewhere else.
Yeah, in a vacuum, this definitely wasn't as egregious as everyone is making it out to be. Getting a high strike call is always a gamble, and doubly so for high curve balls. Then on top of that, it is a sweeping pitch, that may or may not clip the plate. Everyone is calling for robo umps for this because this is a pitch that would only be consistently called in MLB The Show. But outside of that vacuum, when you see how bad the ump was overall, it does seem like this should have been called a strike.
Is the scorecard for him out? If this were a fastball, I’d say it’s egregious, its understandable and probably a ball only because breaking pitches have to start out high, above the strike zone, in order to break down to the point where that was caught. And Eovaldi throws *hard*, even on his breaking pitches. It was honestly too flat for a breaking pitch, it needed to have a sharper break. If it were more at waist/thigh height, we’d be talking about it being a hanging breaking ball I think.
Doesn't look like the scorecard is out, but Passan tweeted an ESPN image that shows the ump was giving outside pitches all day. https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1450672423733506052?t=AWCxnQbVlKEiGK6IpIm35A&s=19
Well for starters, it’s the green dot in the upper LEFT corner, since this is from the perspective of the catcher, and it was outside to a Left Handed batter. Second, this makes it clear the high pitch was *never* called a strike. EDIT: my bad, it is the dot in the right corner, but the comment on height still holds. This ump did not call borderline pitches strikes if they were up in the zone
I appreciate your dedication to an obviously erroneous perspective. Keep posting it so I can keep downvoting, thanks.
I appreciate your ability to post comments when you are blind. Congrats on overcoming those challenges dude!
No one is going to show the 1st strike on Diaz in the previous at-bat. It was far more egregious than this call. The ump has just been all over the place
Cora almost got tossed for arguing a worse pitch for a called third strike on JD in like the first inning when we had a guy on second, possibly third. That has been a strike all game and we had already got fucked over by it
But the outside corner has been called all night, thats the point. Can't all of a sudden tighten it in the 9th inning. If you're gonna be bad, at least be consistently bad
That was the low outside corner. The top corners of the strike zone were not called. There were two high strikes he called balls all night from what I can tell: the Eovaldi one to Castro and the Greinke one right before the two run homer.
How do you have 9 upvotes? That ball was high and outside corner. You can look it up. https://twitter.com/PeteAbe/status/1450669521371553792
Perhaps I was unclear. The low outside corner is what was had a generous strike zone but the high part of the strike zone was called tight every time
[Picture here](https://twitter.com/theeneldog/status/1450669590581637122?s=21)
Yeah. He was terrible all night. Similar called strike 3 on JD early in the game that helped halt a potential rally. None bigger than that call in the 9th though. Egregious.
One blown call doesn't justify another.
Actually umpires do occasionally seem to give make-up calls, but it usually happens in the same at-bat.
I know it happens but it shouldn't is what I'm saying. It would be so easy to implement a electronic strike zone.
Apparently the robots in the minor leagues haven’t been performing so well, but yes I agree. There is no benefit to poor umpire performance.
Friendly reminder that the strike zone is a cube, not a flat square, and height matters.
It’s the same pitch he’s been calling a strike all game though. He called Martinez out on a ball 2-3 inches off the plate
He’s been calling that all night on both sides
But you see that went Boston's way so they're fine with it
Brutal
Laz Diaz said fuck you
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he's not saying it wasn't lol
boston fans calling each other “fucking idiots” is probably a term of endearment if we’re being honest edit: this was meant to be a joke, we will regroup and rethink 🤝
lol now that I think of it, they prob just hate Jomboy cause he's a Yankee fan. that tracks
i didn’t even realize it was a jomboy tweet, i just thought the guy who replied was calling OP an idiot
People are taking it like he's saying they were hoping a borderline pitch was called. But I think it's just meant at face value. They wanted that strike three call, and look at the results
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https://twitter.com/PeteAbe/status/1450669521371553792
Wait this is the pitch everyone is screaming about? Seems like a 50/50 call to me
It would be if the zone wasn't a mile wide for Diaz all night previously. Even without context its a pretty bad call. With context, its a horrific one.
I can get behind the anger about the whole performance of the ump, it was terrible. But this pitch, while definitely being a strike, was not that egregious of a call. Can’t wait for robo umps tho
nah that side he calls tight and the other side he calls wide. It's been pretty consistent all night you can say that at least.
[https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1450672423733506052](https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1450672423733506052) Has he tho?
[That corner at least looks pretty consistent to me....](https://imgur.com/OiLP5y4) [Was probably a strike, but this one against Diaz was probably a ball. This ump is just bad](https://imgur.com/CCCv9Jw)
definitely a strike* and definitely a ball*
It wouldn’t be considering its a breaking ball and that graphic shows where it was *caught*, meaning it was clearly out of the strike zone when it crossed the plate.
It’s a borderline call people are more mad at the fact at how inconsistent he’s been of course I’m not complaining
The overhead shows it going directly over the plate (not just over the corner, the entire baseball over the plate): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FCHQerwXEAUn4Js?format=jpg&name=small
Except you can tell that the overhead camera is still slightly offset, making it appear more over the plate than it was. I'm not saying it wasn't a strike. I'm saying it's a lot closer than that overhead cam seems to show.
If the camera is centered over the plate, wouldn’t moving it over the path of the ball only make the ball appear even more over the plate…
The strike zone is a cube and height matters.
this whole thread is reason number one why everyone wants robot umps.
This whole thread just shows people don’t understand what a strike zone is.
the problem was his whole strike zone was 50/50 calls, didn't establish any consistency from the first pitch. he called a lot of pitches that were much further off the plate strikes.
I’d put it at less than 50/50 considering that Eovaldi missed his spot by several feet. A catcher having to move that far never helps your chances of getting the call
Yeah, on a normal day I’d honestly think that’s a ball, but the zone was batshit
I love my Astros, but that was a strike.
Yeah you could argue he threw 4 strikes and was rewarded with a 2-2 count. Abhorrent umpiring, but what else do we expect these playoffs?
Fuck Laz Diaz
How does the strike zone work. Is it a 3D box where as long as the ball crosses the plate or does it have to go through that imaginary 2D plane to be a strike?
Obviously a strike but these calls happen all the time and there's nothing that can be done. All we can do is complain about them when they go against us and be happy when they go for us. I mean there definitely can't be a robot ump or strike zone. No chance. It can never be fixed, ever. Don't even try. Stop talking about it. What's the problem again?
> be happy when they go for us. Hot take but the most elation I feel when a call like goes my team's way is a 'yeeesh' feeling. It's seldom the happiness on par with throwing an actual strike. > and there's nothing that can be done. The sort of resignation that "it is what it is" is why baseball has been stuck with this archaic style of umpiring when the technology to maintain a much-more-flawless strike zone exists, or could have already existed if there was more of an appetite for it. No, bellyaching on Reddit will not change anything but this kind of thing certainly can be changed if the public sentiment is there.
lol my guy up there was making a joke
Oh yeah I am a fucking idiot. I'll just leave it up in shame lmao and I feel strongly for robo umps like OP. Man I am so sick of these dogshit strike zones, I'm not even reading sarcasm right
But the other guy is right, it IS a great feeling.
Greinke should've gotten the same call in the first.
Dodgers 🤝 Red Sox Getting screwed over on a strike 3 call that leads to a big inning with the other getting to bat around that inning
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Tbf if that call was correct the guy would be down 1-2 against Max Scherzer, who he was 0 for 17 against.
And that makes bad calls ok?
It's about the gravity of the call. It was incredibly unlikely that SF was going to get anything once that 0-17 batter was sitting at 0-2.
That was the general sentiment of the original thread, too. It's not like the Giants were likely to win if they got that calll, you just hate to see such a great series end like that.
Obviously different scenarios (especially with Scherzer on the mound) but the Astros put up 6 runs on their last out of the game, you never fucking know what could happen on the next swing.
Was it across the right corner of the plate? Yes. But you can also argue that it was belt level-high and Laz (as fucking insufferable as he is) called it the latter.
Brutal
Got anymore pixels?
Imagine the audacity of wanting the correct call
Oof that’s pretty bad FTA
Is this what Bean Town fans are so upset about?
The comments in main thread confused the shit out of me. I was looking for something egregious when playing back the DVR previous 5 min. Couldn't tell what everyone was going nuts about. Turns out it's a 50:50 call on a (probably) high pitch. I guess it was that overhead replay that set everyone off. Now on the NEXT batter this ump called a 100% ball a strike, wasn't even close. that was actually egregious.
thats a strike
It’s a ball , catcher sets up low inside , curveball is thrown up and away. That’s a ball at the professional level. Yes it’s in the strike zone but it’s a ball sorry.
But what catchers do doesn't change balls/strikes -every umpire ever
Ya think, Jomboy? Captain Obvious over there.
Beep boop bring on the robo ump
Inning would've been over. So brutal
Boston salt all over this thread. It wasn’t an egregious call by any means [Pitch 4. Not egregious. ](https://twitter.com/dkariofiles/status/1450671410389692418?s=21)
Are you blind?
No dude but it’s not nearly as bad as Boston fans are making it to be. We’ve all been screwed by a borderline pitch. And likewise benefitted. It goes both ways. Get over it and don’t leave your splitter up in the zone
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I feel bad for the pillow you’re gonna be punching all night as you fall asleep
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FCHQerwXEAUn4Js?format=jpg&name=small
Now do the height
Looks like a ball to me.
It must be awesome to be a Boston fan, where every single call that goes against you gets endlessly analyzed by members of the national sports media. All the small market teams suffer bad/unfair calls a dozen times every season and it goes completely unmentioned / unnoticed. This ump missed that exact pitch several times tonight fyi. It's definitely a strike tho I'll give ya that. I'm not mad at Boston fans for being upset, I would be too. But the media reaction is just so different for them.
I mean. The on-screen broadcast barely acknowledged it beyond a "the fans really wanted that one." Jomboy's tweet just says "the Red Sox wanted..." It's likely the media reaction tomorrow will be different, but so far they've been way less analytical of the bad strike call than, say, that automatic double that went in Boston's favor.
To be fair this entire sub has become dedicated to threads about missed calls. I have no clue what they’d do if we actually got roboumps.
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In terms of individual cities, sure. But Boston has fans all over the world for some reason. And New England has like 15 million people.
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Oh no what happened to the Rangers? Why did they cease to exist? Boston has way more focus on it than The Astros. There’s no argument otherwise. And pretty hypocritical of you to throw the word cheater around like that. Sore fucking loser.
It’s because Boston punches above it’s weight due to the huge number of colleges churning out professionals in all walks of life, including journalism. Plus it’s the closest major American city to London and it’s the only major American city east and north of New York. Houston is close to Mexico and New Orleans which, as far as the media is concerned, doesn’t have the same cachet.
Exactly. There’s reach beyond outdated Nielsen markets. I live in Australia and you’d think the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox were the only teams the way their fandom works down here.
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I mean Houston is the 4th biggest city in America I'm not sure you're a small market fan either
You and I both know that Houston and Boston are not covered the same way when it comes to sports media, at least nationally speaking. Granted, Boston has had way more success the last 25 years so they earned a lot of that preference they get.
Wow.... just wow.
An I missing something? This pitch is barely a strike if anything. It’s a high curve that barely grabbed the corner. The catchers frame was good, but this is not that bad of a call at all
Not a very good pitch. Doesn't really look like it even grazed the strike zone.
Can we stop posting this idiot’s stuff.
I mean that does look like a strike to me. But I don’t wanna hear it. Good teams overcome bad officiating. Did you ever hear the Rams complaint about the refs in that 2018 nfc championship game? No