Tag: Doug Eddings

Doug Eddings’ horrible night led to the Blue Jays hitting coach getting ejected before a game

The umps couldn’t handle the heat.

The Toronto Blue Jays broadcast knew something was different when the team sent hitting coach Guillermo Martinez out there to exchange lineup cards before Wednesday’s game — a job typically reserved for the manager or select players.

Well, it turned out Martinez had a reason for the appearance at home plate. He still wasn’t over the abysmal performance from umpire Doug Eddings. And Martinez let him know about it.

During Tuesday night’s game, Eddings put forth the worst effort behind the plate from an umpire this season. He missed 29 calls — nearly all of them were balls that were called strikes. On top of that, the calls heavily favored the White Sox in the Blue Jays’ eventual 7-6 loss in 12 innings.

So, that all led to this exchange before the game.

Martinez had a few words for Eddings and the umpiring crew, and before the game even had a chance to start, the Blue Jays hitting coach was ejected. Martinez knew exactly what was going to happen there, but you almost hoped that the crew would have owned up to the terrible night and let him get those words in.

But these are umpires we’re talking about here. That was never going to happen.

Umpire Doug Eddings missed nearly 30 calls in the worst game behind the plate this MLB season

HOW is this possible?!

It’s difficult to imagine a worse night to get the home-plate umpiring assignment than the hot, muggy 12-inning game in Chicago on Tuesday. But that doesn’t give an umpire the excuse to straight-up fail at his job.

Doug Eddings didn’t seem to care.

Both the Blue Jays and White Sox players were beyond frustrated on Tuesday as Eddings seemingly expanded his strike zone to unheard-of levels. According to Umpire Scorecards, Eddings incorrectly called 26 taken pitches in the game. Umpire Auditor had the performance even worse with Eddings missing 29 calls — the most missed calls in a game this season. His called-strike accuracy came in at a putrid 64 percent. It was an embarrassing effort all the way around.

And looking at the breakdown, it almost seemed like Eddings knew what he was doing. Nearly all of the missed calls were called strikes as he scored a 99 percent on called-ball accuracy. He basically wanted to speed up the game and go home, which backfired as the game went 12 innings. The White Sox won, 7-6.

Those frustrations seemed to boil over into Wednesday for the Blue Jays as hitting coach Guillermo Martínez got ejected while exchanging lineup cards before the game. He must have shown Eddings his scorecard.

MLB fans understandably had plenty of thoughts on Eddings’ terrible night.