Bryce Harper goes off on Angel Hernandez over bad check-swing call
Angel Hernandez continues to add to his greatest hits collection.
The infamous MLB umpire Hernandez was working third base during Thursday’s Philadelphia Phillies-Pittsburgh Pirates game. With lefty Bryce Harper at the plate in the third inning, Hernandez rang up Harper for strike three after Harper checked his swing on a 3-2 pitch.
Harper, who was already taking off his gear to walk to first base, was totally livid and came all the way up the third-base line to give Hernandez a piece of his mind. The former NL MVP was quickly ejected by Hernandez but still got his money’s worth, getting right in Hernandez’s face before Phillies manager Rob Thomson stepped in to intervene.
Take a look at the video of the incident (which ended with Harper lobbing his batting helmet into the stands).
Bryce was just ejected for being correct pic.twitter.com/NUDPF9OOOB
— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) September 28, 2023
Here is another angle of the checked swing which shows how egregiously bad Hernandez’s call was.
This was the swing Angel Hernandez said Bryce Harper went around on pic.twitter.com/Mnd3GiuST3
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) September 28, 2023
Thursday’s game didn’t matter much for the Phillies, who already clinched a playoff berth. But this is just par for the course for Hernandez, who simply cannot stop making horrific calls even when he is not behind the plate.
Hernandez, having recently lost an appeal of his discrimination lawsuit against MLB, has had too many umpiring transgressions over the years to count. Maybe we can just limit it to the calls that Hernandez has blown at third base (which are already plentiful).
