Robot umps through one week: Shelton's ejection shows emotions still there, biggest winners and losers so far
Balls and strikes are now reviewable in baseball, and that has added some drama to the first few days of the season.
You might think that with a limited number of challenges per game — and technology that's hard to argue with — the tension would be minimal, but Minnesota manager Derek Shelton got himself ejected in the ninth inning against Baltimore on Sunday over a pitch review.
With one on and one out and Baltimore up by two, Ryan Helsley's 3-2 pitch to Minnesota's Josh Bell was called a ball. Helsley tapped his hat — the signal for a challenge — then did so again as if to drive the point home. The replay showed the pitch nicking the outside corner, the call was overturned, Bell was out, and Shelton argued. He was eventually thrown out of the game and Baltimore went on to win 8-6.
Shelton told reporters afterward he didn't think Helsley tapped his hat quickly enough.
Another game that raised eyebrows was Cincinnati's 6-5 win over Boston on Saturday. There were eight ABS challenges in that game with umpire CB Bucknor behind the plate. Six calls were overturned. The Red Sox used both of their challenges by the end of the third inning. All five of Cincinnati's challenges were successful.
Salvador Perez and the Kansas City Royals have been baseball's best at utilizing their robot challenges through the first weekend of the ABS.
Perez topped all catchers by going 4-0 on challenges, while San Francisco's Heliot Ramos and Cincinnati's Eugenio Suárez were the only batters who went 2-0 — Suárez won his appeals on consecutive pitches. Three-time MVP Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels is 3-1 on challenges.
Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña Jr. was the only batter who went 0-2.
Kansas City and Arizona were the only perfect teams, with the Royals 4-0 and Arizona 3-0. Houston was 0-6 and St. Louis was 0-3.
Many teams have tried to save their challenges for high-leverage situations.
“1-1 counts. Counts that are going to end the at-bat. Those are big challenge times,” said Phillies manager Rob Thomson, whose team went 4-3.
Challenges had a 53.7% success rate through 47 games. There were 175 challenges, an average of 3.7 per game.
