Orioles found a new way for umpires to screw them even with ABS challenges available

Every week, there's an image that goes semi-viral of an ABS challenge, won or lost by a millimeter. There have been strikes that just clipped the zone by the red thread on the ball, and pitches found to be outside by the width of a sewing thread. It's great that the system is that precise, but calls that are right or wrong by a fingernail are not why the challenge system was necessary. The challenge system came to be because fans and players were tired of "the ump show". That ump show reared it's head in the last game of the Baltimore Orioles series against the Diamondbacks in a critical moment.

With no outs in the bottom of the seventh, down one, with Pete Alonso up to bat in a 2-1 count, Gunnar Henderson stole second base. The pitch was a strike, and the catcher popped up to throw, but it was too late, and Henderson had the bag stolen.

Even though the throw went back to the pitcher as it would after any other pitch, this was clearly different; the catcher had come out of his crouch, the pitcher had ducked out of the way of the potential throw, and Alonso had backed out of the box.

The pitch clock started as usual, but all three of the parties that are involved in an at-bat had been a little bit scattered and needed a little time to regroup. The catcher got back into his crouch, lifted up his mask and spit, the pitcher was off the rubber, kicked some dirt out of his cleat, and Alonso, seeing the other two parties taking their time, also took his time getting into the box. Nobody was causing the kind of delay that the pitch clock was implemented to stop. In the flow of a game, a stolen base is a disruptor, and everyone needs a moment to regroup, not a minute or even a half-minute, but like five seconds.

Yet another umpire's mistake cost the Orioles a very winnable game

An umpire with any feel would have seen what was going on and reset the pitch clock, but that is not what home plate umpire John Tumpane did. He saw his chance to put his mark on the game, and he took it, calling Alonso out as he was literally a second away from turning his head towards the mound.

After every game, you can see what each ABS challenge was worth in run value, and some of them are worth a lot. What's it worth for the pitcher to have the umpire just call the opposing team's three-hole hitter out without having to throw a pitch? Alonso hits righties better than lefties; he's been hitting relivers better than starters, and his last few big hits have come with two strikes. He was in a good spot to deliver a hit or a homer and drive in the game-tying run.

Henderson came in to score when Leody Taveras delivered in a pinch-hit situation, so on the surface, it may seem like no harm, no foul, but there was harm, and there was foul. If Alonso doubles in Henderson, then he's the one who scores on Taveras' hit, and that's the game-winning run.

This also wasn't the first strange call tilted against the Orioles in this game. During Coby Mayo's at bat in the second inning, he raised his arm after a pitch came in like many batters do, and even though he didn't tap his head, the umpire declared that Mayo had just used the Orioles first challenge, which is obviously lost because he wasn't trying to challenge the pitch.

Mayo doubled later in the at-bat, so the controversy around this strange call was quelled, but it did impact the game because being down to your last challenge in the second inning changes how teams use their challenges. Who knows how many pitches the Orioles could have overturned over the course of this game if they hadn't been saving their last challenge for the end of the game.

This game went to extra innings, and the Orioles lost. It's impossible to know for sure, but it certainly feels like if the umpire doesn't have multiple spaz calls throughout the game directed exclusively at the Orioles, that they would have won this game in nine innings.

The reason ABS exists is that fans don't want the umpire to decide the game with their mistakes, and yet what Tumpane did in this game was find a way to decide this game in a way that couldn't be challenged or overruled. This is why fans want the umpires phased out. The "human element" is not cute when it's a middle-aged man grinding a weird axe against your team. It's hard to say how MLB will stop the kind of ump show that Tumpane put on, but not long ago, the idea of an automated strike zone seemed like a fantasy. How long before there are no umps and cameras and robots are doing everything they do better?

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