Sometimes, home plate umpires have bad games when it comes to calling balls and strikes. That apparently happened to Sean Barber on Sunday, at least for one inning, and the Los Angeles Dodgers paid for it dearly.
All three Dodger outs in the bottom of the 9th Sunday were recorded on strikeouts looking as they lost 3-2 to the Chicago Cubs. Worse, every single called third strike was borderline at best and downright bad at worst.
https://twitter.com/molly_knight/status/1647737188426354688
Barber called David Peralta out on a pitch that was off the plate away. Jason Heyward went down on a pitch that was clearly inside, and Freddie Freeman fell victim to a pitch that looked low with the tying run on base to make the last out of the game.
The @Cubs win their first series in LA since 2014! pic.twitter.com/JAoVquI9Fn
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) April 16, 2023
MLB’s pitch tracking did not make Barber look much better, and highlighted how Heyward fell victim to two borderline calls in the same place on consecutive pitches.
Every. Single. Strikeout. Outside. pic.twitter.com/ASMQcUu2h4
— Robert Chavez (@_ChavezRobert) April 16, 2023
The call on Heyward looked to be the worst, but all three of those are pretty bad. Obviously, the Dodgers only scored two runs in their loss, but they might feel that the bat was taken out of their hands in those key plate appearances.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time we’ve seen Barber spotlighted for something like this.
