Aug 4, 2012; San Diego, CA, USA; Major League Baseball umpire Angel Hernandez (55) during a substitution during the eighth inning between the New York Mets and San Diego Padres at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

There’s the debate about whether or not humans should continue calling balls and strikes, seeing as how we now have technology capable of doing a more accurate job of it.

But there’s one thing we can all agree on- while humans are calling balls and strikes, there are many people that should not be involved in calling balls and strikes.

Veteran umpire Angel Hernandez is one of those people, and during Tuesday night’s Yankees-Blue Jays game in Toronto, he showed why.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, Masahiro Tanaka threw a pitch right down the middle to Toronto’s Randal Grichuk, which apparently meant “Ball One” to Hernandez.

This may have literally been a game-changing pitch. Grichuk should’ve had an 0-2 count,which would’ve been highly in Tanaka’s favor. Sure, the way catcher Gary Sanchez received the ball may have thrown Hernandez off a bit, but that pitch is clearly in the strike zone. Presentation and framing from the catcher shouldn’t make *that* big of a difference on perceiving that particular pitch.

Well, the missed strike call made it a 1-1 count, and Grichuk proceeded to crank a solo homer on the very next pitch. That began a four-run inning for the Blue Jays, and that was the difference in a 4-3 Toronto victory. Even the Blue Jays’ Twitter account mocked how the inning went.

And it wasn’t just one bad strike call in the inning from Hernandez. He seemed to miss four strike calls:

This is nothing new from Hernandez, or CB Bucknor, or Joe West. But they somehow continue to keep their jobs.

About Matt Clapp

Matt is an editor at The Comeback. He attended Colorado State University, wishes he was Saved by the Bell's Zack Morris, and idolizes Larry David. And loves pizza and dogs because obviously.

He can be followed on Twitter at @Matt2Clapp (also @TheBlogfines for Cubs/MLB tweets and @DaBearNecess for Bears/NFL tweets), and can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.

1 thought on “Even for Angel Hernandez, this missed strike call is embarrassing

  1. Angel Hernandez has a long history of bad calls behind the plate and the MLB does… Nothing. Calls like this push me more and more towards taking the umpire out of the ball/strike game and just letting the computer make the call. At least, they should allow a challenge on calls like this perhaps with a one ball or one strike penalty to the team that challenges (as appropriate) if they get the challenge wrong.

Comments are closed.