M's Pole-Axed by Jered Weaver (and friend) part 2

=== A Little Cheese With that Whine, Doc? ===

M-Pops sez,

If ever there were ever a time for Wedge to have a good, old-fashioned Manager meltdown on the umps, last night after the blown call @ 3B was it.

12-15 blown strikes AND blowing the Peguero throw?! Worst officiating I have seen in some time.

Blowers, in the booth, was stunned at the calls on Fister.  

Those weren't arguable borderline pitches -- in one sequence the tracer had five clear strikes taken away from Fister in about ten pitches.  Boom, an inning or two later, the extra stress contributed to a mini-fracture and an Angels rally.  (Later in the game, Kyle Seager was rung up, with gusto, on precisely the kind of pitch that the ump had smugly denied Fister a dozen times.)

 

My man at Mariner Central, JOlder, argues that umps don't buy into "mystique" games like Jered Weaver, Mike Scioscia and the Angels at home, but how many games have you seen like this?

***

One of these days, ten years from now or 50, they will hook the F/X system up for the ump.  He'll hear a pleasant little tone on a strike, a little buzz for a ball.  He will be responsible for calling the strike as F/X sees it, unless he can justify his reasoning to his supervisor after the game.

And one of these days, two years from now or ten, they'll have instant replay for those safe/out calls on the bases.  Maybe they'll start by excluding stolen bases.  I dunno.  

But what's the for-public-consumption logic against instant replay?  The actual reason on the field is that they want the umpires to be part of the personality of the game, and discretion on blowing calls is part of the way they keep the balance of power.

But!  add F/X and instant replay, and you won't need arguments with umpires.  Ejections will provide more leverage than will even be needed, once the calls are fair. 

***

I presume that there was some MLB(TM) reason, beyond our perception, as to why last night wasn't the right moment for an Eric Wedge ejection.  

Possibly it's perceived mostly as whining to get thrown out when you're facing a Cy Young winner; I don't remember anybody ever getting thrown out of a Big Unit game.

But there's likely some field / dugout reason for Wedge holding his tongue on Thursday.  Baker would probably know.

BABVA,

Dr D

Comments

1

Rated AAA for Amusing, Adroit, and A lot of fun to see.
Jeffy also has the craftsmanship to know when not to clutter up a home-run idea.  He left his fun word / empty word SLG at .985.
***
At SSI it's not a structural option to lay two killer paragraphs out there and allow them to resonate, which is a good thing, since it's also not an ability option to do so.

2
ghost's picture

AWESOME post by Jeff...I love that he captured Seager's disbelief (in the two ways that a rookie is allowed to have disbelief) with two clips and one actual paragraph. That was HILARIOUS...and I'd get ejected about 50 times in my rookie season if I had the talent to play major league baseball...because I have NO STOMACH whatsoever for injustice. Last night, when they rang up Seager on a pitch that was 8 inches inside, I pounded my desk and threw a pencil at my computer screen...and when they blew that call at third base, I slammed my headphones to the ground and kicked my rolling chari all the way across my room, then turned off the game and went for a 15 minute run in the dark to calm down. Perhaps some of the physical reaction on my part wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been biting my tongue hard enough to hurt to keep from waking up my girlfriend, but still...it's been a long time since I was that angry at the umpires...it jsut kept building and building all game long...pitch after pitch after perfect pitch from a razor sharp Doug Fister blown by the umps...and pitch after pitch after imperfect pitch off the plate given to Weaver and then the bad call at third just put it over the top. If the next Angel had gotten a base hit to blow it open (before I turned off the game and left), I would probably not have been able to stay quiet...physically not able.

4
IcebreakerX's picture

Olivo was catching last night, right?
Was this a case of the lack-of-framing coming up?

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