MLB fans saw the real Angel Hernandez on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, and oh man, it wasn’t pretty.
Just a few days after the much-maligned umpire put together a solid performance calling balls and strikes behind the plate in Boston, Hernandez had the home plate assignment for the Brewers-Phillies game in Philadelphia on Sunday. That game alone could serve as a case to remove Hernandez from the MLB umpiring ranks.
It was that abysmal.
By now, you’ve probably seen videos of Kyle Schwarber losing his cool at Hernandez after getting rung up on a clear, would-be walk. Schwarber could be seen telling Hernandez that he was making awful calls all over the place for both teams. And the Phillies outfielder was spot on.
According to Umpire Auditor, Hernandez was the worst-performing umpire of the night, missing calls on 19 (!!!) taken pitches and only calling 85.3 percent correctly.
Umpire Angel Hernandez was the lowest rated umpire on the day, missing 19 calls for a correct percentage of 85.3%.
He rang up 6 batters on pitches that were outside the zone and called a strike to Jean Segura that missed inside by a season high 6.47 inches.#Brewers #Phillies pic.twitter.com/pmmt1ELJJ6
— Umpire Auditor (@UmpireAuditor) April 25, 2022
He called this pitch, which missed the strike zone by 6.47 inches, a strike on Jean Segura.
Angel Hernandez in elite form tonight pic.twitter.com/VuTicAGPVF
— Welcome to the Ump Show (@umpjob) April 25, 2022
Umpire Scorecards came in with a slightly better review of Hernandez’s performance, but it was still awful. They had him at an overall accuracy of 88 percent with 16 missed calls on taken pitches. But his inability to identify strikes was alarming. He called 11 true balls for strikes — a 77 percent accuracy rate.
Umpire: Angel Hernandez
Final: Brewers 1, Phillies 0#ThisIsMyCrew // #RingTheBell#MILvsPHI // #PHIvsMIL pic.twitter.com/x38zUGrU5E— Umpire Scorecards (@UmpScorecards) April 25, 2022
While it’s an incredibly difficult job to call balls and strikes for MLB pitching, Hernandez is among the worst in the sport. A one-off respectable performance isn’t enough to wipe away years of incompetence. Sunday should have been a wake-up call for MLB and the umpiring union, but they’ve tolerated Hernandez’s embarrassing career for this long. It doesn’t seem like that’s about to change.
Still, MLB fans had seen enough, and they were awfully vocal about it on Sunday.