Tag: Bad umps

A college baseball player was ridiculously ejected for a bat flip after game-tying grand slam

This was an absurd ejection by the umpire after a hype moment.

Hitting a game-tying grand slam is an event that should be cause for massive celebration. According to one college baseball umpire, however, it lead to an ejection instead.

On Sunday, Grand Canyon was playing Nebraska to close out their early-season series against one another. Nebraska won two of three games played, with Grand Canyon looking to tie the series Sunday afternoon. However, Grand Canyon was down 8-4 entering the bottom of the fifth and needed a big offensive half inning to get back into it.

With the bases loaded and no outs, Tyler Wilson delivered for Grand Canyon with a towering shot to right field for a game-tying grand slam. However, as Wilson approached home plate, the umpire motioned his way and suddenly ejected him. Why? Because Wilson threw his bat in the air after the ball cleared the outfield fence.

That’s a pretty innocuous bat flip, all things considered. Wilson didn’t even break stride or trot as he did it!

It’s still early in the baseball calendar but add this one to the bad umpires tally.

MLB fans were in disbelief after umpire Edwin Moscoso gifted Austin Riley a walk despite 5 straight strikes

So many missed calls in ONE at-bat …

The Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies had themselves yet another rollercoaster game on Tuesday. Atlanta jumped to a 6-1 lead before the Phillies tied it in the ninth with the Braves ultimately winning in extra innings.

But it was also a night that saw home plate umpire Edwin Moscoso miss some big calls in crucial spots. The rookie umpire showed signs of trouble early in the game, particularly with Braves third baseman Austin Riley at the plate.

Facing Zach Wheeler in the first inning, Riley worked a walk in an eight-pitch at-bat despite the first five pitches being strikes. Out of the eight pitches, seven were either strikes or foul balls. Yet, Moscoso gifted Riley with a walk.

Even Riley seemed a bit surprised by some of those calls, and Wheeler was visibly frustrated with that strike zone. Again, only one taken pitch missed the zone in the entire at-bat.

In all, it wasn’t a great performance for Moscoso who also missed a would-be strikeout call in the 10th inning before Eddie Rosario’s go-ahead hit.

The Riley at-bat, though, had MLB fans stunned.

MLB fans crushed umpire C.B. Bucknor after he ended a one-run game on a blatant missed call

This embarrassment needs to end.

Just this past weekend, MLB fans were in disbelief as longtime umpire C.B. Bucknor lost control of a game between the Rays and Guardians.

He didn’t exactly have himself a bounce-back performance on Wednesday.

Bucknor — who is among baseball’s least accurate umpires this season — was behind the plate for the Brewers’ game against the Pirates. The game saw the Pirates overcome a three-run deficit to take a 5-4 lead into the ninth. With the tying run on first and William Contreras at the plate with a full count in the ninth, it seemed like Bucknor just wanted to go home.

He called this pitch a strike:

You always want to protect the plate if it’s close with a full count, but it would be awfully difficult to blame Contreras for taking that pitch. It wasn’t close at all. And yet, Bucknor called the pitch a game-ending strike despite it crossing over the left-handed batter’s box. Oddly enough, this was the second straight game where Bucknor expanded the zone for right-handed batters.

Brewers fans were justifiably upset to see the game end like that. They should’ve had the tying run on second base. Instead, it was game over.

Umpire C.B. Bucknor forgot to restart the pitch clock and lost track of the count in an awful night

This can’t continue.

C.B. Bucknor is one of those umpires who players hate to see working behind the plate. They know to expect a wildly inconsistent strike zone, and on top of that, Bucknor struggles with even the most basic umpiring duties.

That kind of incompetence can send a game off the rails, and Saturday’s matchup between the Rays and Guardians was a prime example of that. It was an all-around terrible night for Bucknor.

In addition to calling balls and strikes, the home plate umpire is tasked with enforcing the pitch clock. But in the bottom of the fifth inning, the pitch clock didn’t restart. Of course, Bucknor didn’t notice that.

Now, instead of calling the violation on the batter Andres Gimenez who wasn’t alert to the pitcher at the 8-second mark, Bucknor called the pitch clock violation on the Rays. When Rays manager Kevin Cash tried to argue that the pitch clock wasn’t reset for that pitch, Bucknor didn’t confer with the rest of the crew. Instead he argued with Cash and ultimately ejected the Rays manager.

That lack of concentration from Bucknor would continue in the following inning when he lost track of the count and rung up Bo Naylor on a 2-1 pitch.

It was Naylor who had to inform Bucknor that the pitch was just the second strike. Like, how is this happening in a big-league game? It’s unacceptable.

Bucknor’s overall accuracy was atrocious too as he spent much of the night calling strikes on pitches around the left-handed batter’s box.

This scorecard is hilarious:

How does that even happen? We already know that MLB does almost nothing to hold umpires accountable after poor performances, but Bucknor’s night was dreadful in every facet. You can’t blame MLB fans for wanting to see something done about that.

MLB fans loved what Adley Rutschman told Shintaro Fujinami after a missed call ended the game

Find a teammate like Adley Rutschman.

The Baltimore Orioles have the American League’s best record, and they cruised to an easy win on Monday night against the White Sox. But you have to appreciate the honesty from Orioles reliever Shintaro Fujinami.

He knew they won the game on a generous call.

With the Orioles up by nine runs in the ninth inning, Fujinami got two quick outs and went ahead 0-2 against pinch hitter Trayce Thompson. That was when Fujinami went with an 85 mph sweeper just off the plate outside, but home plate umpire Ron Kulpa rung up Thompson on strikes to end the game.

The pitch looked outside enough to have Fujinami asking catcher Adley Rutschman if it was actually a strike.

I mean, that exchange was so wholesome.

Fujinami seemed convinced that the pitch was outside (it was), but Rutschman appeared to say something like, “No, it was beautiful.” To be fair, it was a nice pitch, and you can’t really blame Kulpa for calling the pitch a strike in that situation (0-2 count, two outs in the ninth of a 9-0 game). It was a “let’s go home” kind of call.

Fans enjoyed that postgame conversation as well. Every pitcher needs a supportive teammate like Rutschman. He wanted Fujinami to focus on the great pitch and not the call.

An umpire actually got ejected after a heated argument with a player in a Frontier League game

That’s certainly a new one.

We’ve seen some absolutely wild ejections in independent baseball leagues over the years, but Sunday’s Frontier League game between the New York Boulders and Tri-City ValleyCats might’ve had itself a baseball first:

An umpire was ejected.

According to The Times Union, first base umpire Warren Nicholson was removed from the game in the first inning after a fiery argument with Boulders second baseman Tucker Nathans. The entire altercation started when the Tri-City dugout accused the Boulders of illegally using outfield cameras to steal signs. Nicholson apparently told the Boulders dugout to remove the league-permitted tablets from their bench area, and that set Nathans off in an argument.

Nathans was ejected, and at one point, Nicholson made contact with the New York player, which led to the umpire getting ejected as well.

The Braves broadcast took a hilarious jab at Angel Hernandez after a missed call behind the plate

What strike zone?

Longtime MLB umpire Angel Hernandez missed much of this season after dealing with a medical matter. But since his return in late July, he’s somehow gotten worse behind the plate.

Sunday’s game was no exception.

Hernandez was working home plate for the final game of the Braves’ series with the Giants, and it quickly became apparent to both pitching staffs that Hernandez was calling any pitch somewhat near the outside corner as a strike. It led to some ridiculous missed calls on the afternoon, but you have to appreciate how Braves play-by-play announcer Brandon Gaudin called the expanded strike zone in the moment.

“As Fried fires a strike near the outside corner,” he said.

That was how Hernandez’s day pretty much went as he was consistently calling that outside pitch a strike.

And honestly, it seemed much worse than the scorecard saw it.

MLB fans also had thoughts on Hernandez’s performance behind the plate.

Harrison Bader was certain he struck out before the ump called ball on a pitch down the middle

Nobody was more surprised than Bader.

At every level of baseball, hitters are told to let the umpires make the call. You never want to make an assumption on a would-be ball 4 and have an umpire take it personally, ruling the pitch a strike.

But you almost never see the reverse happen with an apparent strikeout going the other way.

During the second inning of Sunday’s game between the Red Sox and Yankees, center fielder Harrison Bader was convinced that Nick Pivetta’s 0-2 fastball caught the zone. And well, he was correct. The pitch was right down the middle, but home plate umpire Junior Valentine saw it differently. He called the pitch a ball as Bader was already making his walk back to the dugout.

Hey, at least Bader was being honest. But man, what a rough call from Valentine.

Red Sox catcher Reese McGuire made the call more difficult than it needed to be by setting up high and reaching down to catch the ball without much of a frame. Yet, a big-league umpire still should have been able to see a fastball down the middle like that.

The missed call didn’t make a difference as Bader struck out swinging a couple pitches later. Still, fans thought the reaction was hilarious. Bader was just so surprised about the call.

The umpire who had the Phillies livid on Sunday actually had an amazing game behind the plate

His best performance of the season.

If all you saw were two video clips from Sunday’s game between the Twins and Phillies, it would have been easy to assume that home plate umpire Alex MacKay had a terrible afternoon behind the plate.

Those clips didn’t tell the whole story because MacKay actually had his best game of the entire season.

The controversy came in the seventh inning when Mackay ruled that a would-be, bases-loaded walk was an inning-ending strikeout. He rung up Alec Bohm, who furiously spiked his bat, and Bohm was quickly ejected for the theatrics. The following inning, a borderline call on Bryce Harper had the Phillies star arguing with MacKay. Phillies manager Rob Thomson came out and was ejected.

Again, that all looked terrible. And given how upset the Phillies were, it would have been safe to guess that MacKay was in for a rough scorecard come Monday. About that …

According to Umpire Scorecards, MacKay called 98 percent of taken pitches correctly. The missed call on Bohm was impactful (accounted for 1.57 runs almost by itself), but it was just one of three missed calls he had for the entire afternoon — 141 of 144 pitches were called accurately. And the third strike that Harper took issue with? It would have been a strike even with robot umps by catching the smallest sliver of the zone.

Out of the 13 games MacKay has worked behind the plate this season, Sunday was his best performance and only the second time he’s had fewer than five incorrect calls in a game.

It’s wild how that works. MLB fans were certainly surprised.

Angel Hernandez’s missed call led to a home run in his first game back behind the plate

He’s back like he never left.

Longtime MLB umpire Angel Hernandez has been absent for nearly the entire season thus far after dealing with a medical matter. He made his return to big-league action this past weekend, and on Wednesday, he was back behind the plate for the first time in 2023.

It didn’t take long for a missed call to make an impact.

Now, until MLB institutes an automated strike zone (robot umps), you’re almost never going to see an umpire go an entire game without missing a call. It’s only happened once since Ump Scorecards started tracking performance. But Hernandez has a knack for impacting games with his missed calls.

With MacKenzie Gore on the mound for the Nationals, he should have gotten ahead in the count when his 1-1 pitch in the strike zone was called a ball by Hernandez. There’s a huge difference between a 2-1 count and a 1-2 count from a pitcher’s perspective, and Gore paid that price on the very next pitch. He left a 2-1 fastball up high in the zone, which Tyrone Taylor drove for a 396-foot home run.

Again, Hernandez was never going to be perfect in the game, but a missed call in that spot had to be frustrating for Gore and the Nationals.

Fans certainly didn’t have any problem piling on Hernandez for the missed call.