Umpires Control the Game

Let's be honest. Nobody turns on a baseball game to watch the umpires. The umpires. They never have been the focus and yet are trying so hard to take the spotlight away from the players. Umps make questionable calls all the time. It is what keeps everyone engaged, yet in Game 4 the home plate quite literally changed the entire series and tone of the Red Sox v Astros ALCS series.

Nathan Eovaldi came in the top of the 9th inning in his best attempt to keep the score even at 2. Eovaldi had secured two outs and was facing the Houston catcher Jason Castro and would try to keep the Red Sox in the game. Eovaldi was up in the pitch count 1-2. A pitcher's favorite. There was no doubt in anyone's mind when the pitch was thrown that it was a strike, perhaps a little outside but very much a strike. Eovaldi shouted and began to walk off the mound no doubt in his mind that he had done his job and they were headed to the bottom of the 9th. Yet the home plate umpire, Laz Diaz, made a quite delayed no-strike call. Sadly, this was not the only missed ball-strike call. In fact, Diaz made 23 similar calls. This is the worst that any umpire has done in any post-season game. Had what was ultimately called a ball against Castro been a strike, it would have led to the inning being over and the score remaining tied at 2-2. Instead, it led to a disastrous top of the 9th.

It is incredibly hard for a pitcher to be successful at his job when he is unable to determine where the strike zone is. Eovaldi is a great starting pitcher and if this postseason hasn't proved that to you, just take a trip down memory lane to the 2018 World Series Game 3 against the Dodgers, where he pitched a near-perfect seven innings. With all of this said I do not hold the loss against him. It is against the home plate umpire. Plain and simple. While putting in Martin Perez was perhaps a very poor decision, the tone of the game had been changed entirely, and the damage was done.

Google Images - The Look of Disbelief