As we know from “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” it’s “One, two, three strikes you’re out.” But Ryan Additon, the home plate umpire in Thursday night’s game between the Cleveland Guardians and Minnesota Twins, apparently needed a reminder.
Minnesota’s Royce Lewis came to the plate in the fourth inning for an at-bat against Cleveland pitcher, Tanner Bibee.
Lewis fouled the first pitch off. Then, after a ball, Lewis fouled the third pitch off for the second strike. The fourth pitch looked low of the strike zone, but Additon called it a strike. That should have been strike three and eventually, it was. But Bibee and the rest of the Guardians had to bring it to Additon’s attention.
Calling (and Counting) Strikes is hard. 😐 pic.twitter.com/NAgrHnSaWQ
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 2, 2023
Baseball fans were bemused by the sequence.
Just when I thought I seen it all https://t.co/85LgzbOGJ5
— kam (@kampagnepapi) June 2, 2023
@umpjob early contender for fail of the month https://t.co/iQHuHWDnxR
— Owen (@the_owen_hill) June 2, 2023
Umpires keep getting worse https://t.co/6BYTfOTujH
— Steven Leandres (@sleandres) June 2, 2023
Deep down, he knew he called a ball a strike and immediately tried to make up for it 😂 https://t.co/P2vdWcjhGK
— Ryan Ritter (Gamin' 4 Aven) (@ndtex) June 2, 2023
Fortunately, this mistake was fixed and fixed relatively quickly. The umpires conferenced and ruled that it was three strikes. So, it didn’t need to go to an official review.
Still, it’s hard to understand how this happens. It was only a four-pitch at-bat. So, there wasn’t much that needed to be remembered. It also wasn’t as though Additon forgot a previous call in the at-bat. Or, at least that shouldn’t be the case, given that both of the first two strikes were foul balls and no real call needed to be made.
We can look at this and say all’s well that ends well and there’s certainly some truth to that. But it is hard to understand how this mistake ever got made to begin with.
[Rob Friedman, Photo Credit: Bally Sports North]
