Last night Garrett Anderson and Russell Martin managed to get themselves ejected after arguing with home plate umpire Chris Guccione over balls and strikes. They were both unhappy with the size of the strike zone Guccione was granting Rivera and made their displeasure clear. This begs an obvious question: did they have a legitimate complaint, or were they melting down just like their overworked closer? To the tape, er…screencaps!
First, Garrett Anderson. Here is the MLB Gameday screencap of his at-bat, followed by the Brooks Baseball strikezone plot.
It would seem to me that Guccione called a very good strike zone here. The first three pitches were balls, but they were all just barely out of the strike zone. Rivera is known for getting a wide zone from umpires, but he wasn’t getting any benefit of the doubt in this at-bat. After going 3-0, he put one right on the inside corner to go to 3-1, and then placed a cutter low in the zone for the second strike. In short, the umpire called all five of those pitches correctly. What about Russell Martin?
In the Russell Martin at-bat we see roughly the same pattern. Guccione called three straight balls against Rivera to open up the at-bat, and all three were around the strike zone. MLB Gameday shows the third pitch as borderline, but Brooks Baseball’s chart actually shows that it should have been a called strike. Regardless, after getting up 3-0 against Rivera, Martin took two cutters directly in the middle of the strike zone for strikes. At 3-2, Rivera put a cutter roughly where the second ball had gone, but places it slightly higher and towards the middle of the plate. Clearly, it was a strike. Given that the cutter would have been running away from Martin and cutting across the plate the entire time, it’s hard to see how Martin had the right to upset at anyone other than himself.
The Dodgers were not robbed, and Guccione called a fair strike zone. More than anything, it looks like both players were hoping that Guccione would give them a called ball four and a free base against Rivera. Perhaps they doubted their ability to get a hit off Rivera and went up angling for a walk. Regardless, the calls were correct. In a year that has been seemingly full of umpire and referee mistakes (also here, here, here and here) it’s nice to see the men in blue get one right for a change. Guccione did his part to stave off the robot umpire army for one more day.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
7 Responses to Did Anderson and Martin Have a Gripe?
Leave a Reply
TIQ IQ
The problem was not that the umpire got these calls right, the problem was that he got Curtis’s 0-2 wrong, and did not award the low strike in general until Rivera took the mound. The umpire changed his strike zone. This will make players explode.
Eh. He may have gotten it wrong (although it was the third pitch of a 10 pitch AB, not exactly a called ball four), but accuracy > consistency. Calling something consistently wrong doesn’t make it OK.
Although I will say that further examination of his strikezone for all batters reveals that he was having a hard time identifying the low strike to right handed batters, for both teams.
That pitch was much more borderline than either of the pitches Anderson and Martin got steamed about, and as Neyer pointed out, umpires are just not calling that low strike, probably because they don’t see it well.
Either way, looking at the plot he called a ball on the 2nd pitch to Martin that should have been a strike as well, so it’s not like he was giving Rivera everything close to the plate.
Yeah. Broxton has a gripe on the ball to Curtis. And in the ninth Teixeira should have a gripe on his called strike three.
“… but accuracy > consistency. Calling something consistently wrong doesn’t make it OK. ” (Quote)
Intellectually, yes accuracy is more important than calling something consistently wrong. In reality however, if an umpire were to have a strike zone which, for example, is consistently two inches too large along each of the borders- in, out, top and bottom- players would be able to adjust and the game would be able to proceed smoothly, albeit with a flawed strike zone.. However, if the umpire were to call 50% of those pitches strikes and 50% balls, it would create confusion because the strike zone would have no defined shape , even though technically the umpire may be getting more calls right than the previous example.
Yeah, I’ll have to agree with that.