The Oakland Athletics managed to snap the Yankees’ 13-game winning streak on Saturday, but third base umpire Will Little didn’t make matters easy for either team.
Little put together his best Angel Hernandez impression, which isn’t something any umpire should want.
Little’s rough day started when he called a balk on the Yankees’ Nestor Cortes Jr. — a call that usually gets made by the first base umpire when a lefty is on the mound. Little was the only umpire to see a balk, and, well, it wasn’t a balk.
It got even weirder in the third inning when Starling Marte was called safe on a steal attempt. It looked like Rougned Odor got the tag down first, but Little just didn’t see it. That same inning, Little called Marte out after he drifted too far off the bag on a hard liner into the shift.
The problem: Odor was clearly off the bag. Like, it wasn’t even close. You know it was a bad call when the Yankees broadcast reacted in disbelief.
Third base umpire Will Little is having a day…
He's the only ump that called balk on a lefty, he missed an obvious out at third on a steal but the Yankees already lost their challenge, then he calls out on a double play and even after review umpires uphold it pic.twitter.com/QjEMRpCamx
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) August 28, 2021
The call went to MLB’s replay system — which remains broken — and the ruling on the field was upheld. Again, Odor was clearly off the bag. It was obvious on replay.
The whole sequence would lead to A’s manager Bob Melvin getting ejected, and you honestly can’t blame Melvin for being upset there. If umpires are missing easy calls that proceed to get upheld in replay, then what are teams supposed to do?
It was a terrible day all around for that crew, and there’s no reason to expect anything do be done about it. That’s just how MLB operates.