Sunday night’s game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Milwaukee Brewers was extremely controversial, mainly because of umpire Angel Hernandez’s performance behind the plate.
He had glaring mistakes, with no particular team being favored: he was wrong for both sides.
The last straw was a ball that was called a strike and ended in a Kyle Schwarber‘s punchout in the ninth inning of the close (1-0) game.
Schwarber exploded and the target of his anger was Hernandez.
For both hitters and pitchers, a ball or a strike can change the outcome of an at-bat.
It’s not the same to approach a plate appearance up 2-1 than down 1-2 if you are a hitter, for example.
As a pitcher, the difference from coming back to 1-1 to falling behind 2-0 could be significant.
Ozzie Albies Has Been Affected By Bad Calls
Codify Baseball showcased an elite hitter being on the receiving end of some egregious calls by umpires: Atlanta Braves‘ second baseman Ozzie Albies.
“Hitting is hard enough but imagine doing it with a strike zone that was six inches wider. These are all from this season and (even with some bat movement) these are all called strikes. @ozzie is a Silver Slugger nonetheless,” they tweeted, mentioning Albies, with a video of some balls being called as strikes.
smh 🙈🫣
— OzzieAlbies (@ozzie) April 25, 2022
The clip shows fastballs, curveballs, changeups, sliders, and every pitch you can imagine being called a strike, directly affecting Albies’ at-bats.
As Codify says, however, he is good enough to survive those bad calls, slashing .242/.325/.576 with six homers already in 2022.
Albies jokingly replied to the tweet, writing “smh” (shaking my head), and some emojis.
He knows he has been robbed of some quality at-bats, so his numbers could be even better if it wasn’t for umpires.
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