The Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks met up for an important game in the NL playoff race on Saturday night at Chase Field.

Entering the game, the Rockies were 1.5 games back in the NL West and 2 games out of the Wild Card race, while the Diamondbacks were 2 games back in the NL West and 2.5 back in the Wild Card.

The Rockies took a 6-5 lead into the ninth, but Arizona was threatening with two outs and runners on first and second. Rockies closer Wade Davis had a 1-2 count on Nick Ahmed, and threw a 90-mph cutter under Ahmed’s hands, trying to catch the inside corner. The cutter from the veteran right-hander never made it to the inside corner, and instead went under Ahmed’s hands in the right-handed batter’s box.

However, home plate umpire Paul Nauert thought otherwise, and called strike three to end the ballgame.

Fox Sports Arizona play-by-play man Steve Berthiaume had the appropriate reaction for the egregious call to end a big game:

“Oh come on. That is not even close to a strike, Paul Nauert.”

Here’s video:

So yeah- that’s a cutter that never cut. This isn’t like a difficult-to-read breaking ball that crossed the plate. It never was in the strike zone!

Ah, but the human element! This is what the fans came to see. Always good to have obviously garbage calls decide hard-fought, three-hour efforts in games that impact playoff races.

But seriously, it’s beyond time for an automated strike zone already. At the very least, MLB should start doing what the Mexican League recently did- suspend umpires for inexcusably awful calls.

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.

5 thoughts on “Meaningful Rockies-Diamondbacks game ends on embarrassing strike 3 call

  1. it is July 22, there are still 2 1/2 months left in the season, plenty of time left in the season to play and make it in the playoffs. if this was mid to late September, I get your smart ass comments about deciding the playoff run, win games, that’s how it works.

  2. I agree completely with this article except I think that umpire suspensions might be going too far and I don’t think they will happen anyway. Yes, I’m for an automated strike zone. As far as the way the game ended, we should have seen that coming because the home plate ump was getting calls wrong all night – for both teams. In one Nolan Arenado at bat, a pitch that obviously a ball was called a strike and the next pitch, which was obviously a strike, was called a ball. Arenado appeared to be exasperated.

  3. Oh please..that is far from the worst call. Not even that bad. The only people who think it is an embarrassingly bad call are hte idiots who think that hte stupid strike zone box on TV means a damn thing.

  4. I’m a Cubs fan, so I don’t even have a dog in the race, but that is horrendous. You see bad calls all of the time, and you hope that it evens out, but this guy needs to get his eyes checked. Maybe he had sweat in his eyes. I feel awful for that player. Completely inexcusable.

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