OnlyBucs

Great win!



Really glad that Williams got the win!

Boy did that feel good!!!

404751595740070B72555F535B5E1C515D5F320 wrote: Great win!



Really glad that Williams got the win!


Agreed. I always think there is something satisfying about following a blowout loss with one-run win.

17-4 and 2-1 still equals 1-1.

This was good. The last two games felt worse to me than the 8 game losing streak.

It's so frustrating to consistently watch HP umpires unable to distinguish balls from strikes. Last night Wainwright struck out the side looking. But two of those 3rd strike calls were clearly out of the zone. There were a lot of strikes outside the zone and balls inside the zone. It's hard to criticize batters for striking out when they are called out on pitches not even close and then go down swinging at bad pitches because they think they better swing or it'll be called strike 3 anyway. MLB should address this but they won't.

694449585F4E59191A2B0 wrote: It's so frustrating to consistently watch HP umpires unable to distinguish balls from strikes. Last night Wainwright struck out the side looking. But two of those 3rd strike calls were clearly out of the zone. There were a lot of strikes outside the zone and balls inside the zone. It's hard to criticize batters for striking out when they are called out on pitches not even close and then go down swinging at bad pitches because they think they better swing or it'll be called strike 3 anyway. MLB should address this but they won't.


I hear ya Bobster but being and ol' fart like me I sense that if we went back to the days of yore before all kinds of technology we see in telecasts of the games that we would see the same kind of inconsistencies in calling balls and strikes. The only difference is in those times it was not apparent as it is today.

Calling for electronic calling of balls and strikes seems to be a big topic of discussion on many fan websites but I am not one of those fans. To old school. Let the mistakes be made and have the team learn to overcome them.

4E6F674E656D0A0 wrote: It's so frustrating to consistently watch HP umpires unable to distinguish balls from strikes. Last night Wainwright struck out the side looking. But two of those 3rd strike calls were clearly out of the zone. There were a lot of strikes outside the zone and balls inside the zone. It's hard to criticize batters for striking out when they are called out on pitches not even close and then go down swinging at bad pitches because they think they better swing or it'll be called strike 3 anyway. MLB should address this but they won't.


I hear ya Bobster but being and ol' fart like me I sense that if we went back to the days of yore before all kinds of technology we see in telecasts of the games that we would see the same kind of inconsistencies in calling balls and strikes.  The only difference is in those times it was not apparent as it is today. 

Calling for electronic calling of balls and strikes seems to be a big topic of discussion on many fan websites but I am not one of those fans.  To old school.  Let the mistakes be made and have the team learn to overcome them. 


I think it's worse now because the average speed of pitches has dramatically increased since the days of yore. Many years ago even 90+ pitches were infrequent. Players are now bigger and stronger and the ball gets to the plate much faster but the umps' eyes still only see as well as they did decades ago when they had just a little more time to process what they were seeing. There was an ump a week or so ago who never seemed to call a pitch the same way twice. It looked like he was guessing. I wouldn't want that job of making those important calls on every pitch when the ball is coming in at 95+ mph. But it makes a huge different when the count is 1-2 instead of 2-1. Or 2-1 instead of 3-0. It's not just the 3rd strike calls. Those bad calls earlier in the count effect the entire AB from the perspective of both the batter and the pitcher. To me it's like if NFL refs couldn't distinguish in bounds from out of bounds but the league didn't care and just let the problem continue. Every effort should be made to maximize the accuracy of those calls and MLB is turning a blind eye (pun intended) to the problem.

I agree with Bobster. The HP ump last night was atrocious. I know the umpires don't want to acquiesce on electronic calls of balls and strikes, but the technology exists in every single MLB stadium. They could literally do this today. Now, to be fair, I thought he was bad on both sides. He wasn't favoring one team, or one pitcher, over another. Wainwright got some calls, so did Williams. But, the strike zone is objectively defined. If a pitch is in the zone, it should be a strike. If not, it should be a ball. It's not like the HP umpire won't still be needed. There are plenty of calls he's involved in that aren't balls and strikes. The one drawback I see, and I think it's relatively minor, is that this essentially eliminates pitch framing as a skill. A good framer can fool the umpire. He can't fool the computer.

5E56556274517679170 wrote: I agree with Bobster. The HP ump last night was atrocious. I know the umpires don't want to acquiesce on electronic calls of balls and strikes, but the technology exists in every single MLB stadium. They could literally do this today. Now, to be fair, I thought he was bad on both sides. He wasn't favoring one team, or one pitcher, over another. Wainwright got some calls, so did Williams. But, the strike zone is objectively defined. If a pitch is in the zone, it should be a strike. If not, it should be a ball. It's not like the HP umpire won't still be needed. There are plenty of calls he's involved in that aren't balls and strikes. The one drawback I see, and I think it's relatively minor, is that this essentially eliminates pitch framing as a skill. A good framer can fool the umpire. He can't fool the computer.


For the umpires there apparently are no repercussions for missing a lot of ball and strike calls. It should be easy to show them how many they miss.



Either improve at calling pitches or be replaced by a machine or be replaced by a human who is better than you.