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Short Hops: Umps own up to mistake…again
…Again twice in the span of as many days the Umpiring crew for the World Series has admitted they missed a call. This time it was the missed call by then 3rd base umpire Tim Welke in Game 4. With Jimmy Rollins on third a chopper back to the mound instead of going to first pitcher Andy Sonnanstine got Rollins into a run down, Rays third baseman Evan Longoria applied the tag, though Welke called Rollins safe. [Yahoo]
“He’s seen the replay. He knows he missed it,” Mike Port, Major League Baseball’s vice president for umpiring, said Monday.
This could honestly speed up the process of where instant replay could be used more than just for fair/foul on home run calls. Really, the Umps are making the decision a bit easier with the blown calls.
…Because of the weather delay the Tampa Bay Rays were left scrambling for a hotel. They had checked out Monday before their game with the Phillies with the thought of the series heading back to Tampa. With the weather stoppage, the only place they could find with rooms was 25 miles south of Philadelphia in Wilmington Delaware. [USA Today]
…As I reported yesterday Team Japan was still in need of a manager for the World Baseball Classic, and that Tatsunori Hara was now the leading canidate to take the reigns of the WBC defending champs. Hara has now accepted the job and will be the skipper of Team Japan as they try to make it two in a row in the WBC. [CBS]
…According to ESPN’s Buster Olney, second baseman Marcus Giles is far from retired and looking to land a gig for 2009. The last we heard from Mr. Giles was when he almost signed with the Dodgers and backed out at the last second. [ESPN Insider]
”He wants to come back and play,” Bick said. “I could not be more thrilled with what he’s done over the course of the summer [to re-start his career] … He’s going to set a goal of making an All-Star team.” Bick said he’s already had some conversations with some teams.
…In Seattle the Jack Zduriencik era is under way, his first order of buisness? Fire the Scouting Director. Yesterday Zduriencik informed Scouting Director Bob Fontaine that his services were no longer needed. According to one ’source’, Bob wasn’t even allowed to fight for his job. It looks as though Zduriencik will be bring a couple of his guys over from the Brewers Organization. [Seattle Times]
…Former New York Mets manager Willie Randolph is refuting reports that he turned down a job with the Washington Nationals. [ESPN]
“There are [stories] out there that I turned down the Washington [third base] coaching job,” Randolph said, according to the New York Post. “That’s not true. [General manager] Jim [Bowden] and I spoke and he knew that I was looking for an opportunity to manage and he said he would get back to me. It was never offered, so there was nothing to turn down.”
3 Responses to “Short Hops: Umps own up to mistake…again”
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October 28th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
At Beyond the Boxscore the author (a Rays fan) breaks down all the missed pitches the umpires made.
When Instant Replay was first introduced, I didnt understand it. It simply did not seem as though it affected enough games to make it worth changing the rules for. Balls and strikes, on the other hand, alter the game in more ways then the average fan can even comprehend.
October 28th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Yeah, that’s one site I read everyday BTB. Well there was a quote I left out, because it was just another “source”, but basically said that the umping in the series has pushed up instant replay - and that once Bud gets comfortable with it, it could be more.
October 28th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
No offense, Brandon, but the author doesn’t break down “all” the missed pitches. Actually, the umpire missed 15 pitches in the game. Six called balls against the Rays’ pitchers were actually strikes… but there were also four called strikes that were actually balls.
On the flip side, three called balls against the Phillies’ pitchers were actually strikes and two called strikes were actually balls.
Why the vast discrepency??? Well, because the Rays’ batters were hacking away despite the tight strike zone up and down by the umpire. Although a close look at the zone shows that he was quite liberal on pitches on the corners — this was especially true to the Rays’ pitchers who took advantage of a wide plate four times… yet no one wants to give them back.
The thing is pitchers are taught to adjust their game to the strike zone they are being offered. It was obvious they weren’t getting the calls up and down which forced the pitchers to work the outside of the plate more which is where the plate was about a foot wider than it should have been. Not saying it’s right but it’s part of the game. And this is all hinging on the reliability that the guy who set up the Pitch F/x tracking machine was not a millimeter off.
It’s funny how the complaining is more on the balls and strikes and not the awful decision of the umpires to let that game continue beyond the top of the fifth. It looked like the scene in “The Natural” right after Roy knocked the cover off the ball.