Sean Barber appeared to be asleep at the wheel for a brief moment during Sunday’s game.
The veteran umpire Barber was behind home plate at George Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Fla. for the series finale between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers. In the bottom of the sixth inning though, Barber produced perhaps the worst missed strike call of the 2025 season thus far.
Brewers pitcher Tyler Alexander had a 1-2 count on Rays outfielder Travis Jankowski with one out and nobody on. Alexander delivered a 91-mph sinker square in the zone for the presumptive strike 3. However, Barber inexplicably did not ring up Jankowski, who was even ready to walk back to the dugout.
Take a look at the video.
The best part there had to be Alexander suddenly freezing in total disbelief. That pitch wasn’t even on the corner either — it was right smack-dab in the strike zone.
The MLB App showed just how undisputable of a strike that pitch by Alexander was.
Fortunately for the Brewers, the blown call didn’t matter in the end. Jankowski bounced out to Alexander on the very next pitch, and the Rays did not score in that half-inning (going on to lose by a 4-2 final score). But for Barber, who first started as a call-up MLB umpire in 2014 before graduating to full-time umpire in 2022, he is developing something of a reputation here. Barber was blowing strike three calls from the time that he began in 2014 and once appeared to screw up three different strike calls in the same inning.
