Major League Baseball umpire CB Bucknor struck out as six of his calls were overturned in just one game in an embarrassing display of officiating on Saturday.
During the Boston Red Sox’s 6-5 loss to the Cincinnati Reds, pro ball’s new Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS) found the ump in error on six calls out of eight calls that were challenged, the New York Post reported.
Reds third baseman Eugenio Suarez challenged two in back-to-back strike three calls in the sixth inning as Boston rookie Ryan Watson was pitching for the Sox.
“It was like ‘Oh man, that’s two in a row,” pitcher Watson said after the game. “But yeah, just tried to take a deep breath and get back in the zone.”
Watson also said he was shocked at how loud the home crowd in Cincinnati got after the calls were overturned. “That’s probably the loudest I’ve heard a stadium while pitching,” he said, adding, “So it was intense, for sure.”
Granted, both pitches were extremely close, but the new ABS ruled them balls, not strikes.
The ABS couldn’t save Red Sox chief Alex Cora in the eighth inning, though, after he got in a shouting match with the errant umpire when he called Red Sox shortstop Trevor Story out on a check swing.
“He has one job to do, it’s to call balls and strikes,” Cora railed after losing the game. “It wasn’t his best day. That’s what the system does. It’s out there, everybody sees it, and he’ll be the first one to accept it. I saw him putting his head down after one of the challenges.”
However, he did admit, “And we’re all human. It’s not easy, what we do and what he does.”
The Sox tied the game in the ninth inning, sending it into extra innings. But the Reds got their game-winning run in the 11th when Reds center fielder Dane Myers earned a walk-off single.
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