Umpire Brian O’Nora missed a would-be, game-ending call before the D-backs flipped the game on the Royals

The Royals win that game if we had robot umps.

With Angel Hernandez done as an MLB umpire, baseball generally doesn’t have an active umpire with that kind of notoriety to pile on. But don’t get me wrong — there are still bad umpires working behind the plate in MLB games, and Brian O’Nora is among the worst of them.

The Royals experienced that in a big way on Wednesday night.

With Kansas City up a run with one on and one out in the ninth inning, Royals closer James McArthur should have gotten himself a 3-2 strikeout of Geraldo Perdomo. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. was running on the pitch, and Salvador Perez’s throw to second was on the money. This should have been a strike ’em out, throw ’em out double play to end the game.

There was just one problem: O’Nora called the pitch a ball.

So, instead of a Royals win, the Diamondbacks then had two runners on with one out. And they certainly took advantage of the new life. Gabriel Moreno hit the go-ahead double, and Ketel Marte blew the game open with a three-run home run. That would-be, 4-3 win for the Royals turned into an 8-6 D-backs win just like that.

In all, O’Nora had a below-average game behind the plate with a 93 percent accuracy. He ranks in the bottom 10 among all MLB umpires, according to Ump Scorecards.

Royals fans were justifiably upset about the missed call. With robot umps, that would have been a win for Kansas City.

This was how Twitter/X reacted

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