Never want to see anyone injured. But regardless, it is good for the Astros. Unlike the Astros who have 2 aces and about 10 #3-6 starters, the Mariners have 5 #1-3 starters and a bunch of AAAA guys
We can laugh all we want, but I have put one in every house I’ve owned and I would never want to live without it again!
You do not know what you are missing until you have tried one! However, I have a hard time believing that he was ever going to sign with anyone but the Dodgers
Baseball needs roboumps. I get NBA referees have a hard job, but what is a foul/tech/flagrant seems to change too much. One of the reasons I slowed down on watched the Rockets along with acquiring Westbrook. Baseball, the umps tend to have very few calls to mess up outside of balls and strikes. Games being decided by the players instead of refs flipping coins on how they are are going to call something is more enjoyable.
I see no value in having umps call balls and strikes other than MLB having some ability to extend series.
Lawsuit incoming due to fan's stupidity. Definitely looks like he at the very least attempted to climb onto the rail. What a horrific experience for those who had to witness that.
100% the fans fault. Don't know if it's drug induced or not, but stadiums and organizations can't be held liable for something this isolated. Just be an adult when you leave your house. I have no intention of watching baseball through 8 ft plexiglass and 6 ft high guard rails
MLB made a change that players say shrank the strike zone — and caught them by surprise Last winter, Major League Baseball negotiated a seemingly simple change in how home-plate umpires are graded and evaluated. But now, a month into the season, its impact on balls and strikes has players asking questions about what they believe is a tightened strike zone — and searching for ways to adjust to a new wrinkle they say caught them by surprise. That change, which was part of a new labor agreement with the Major League Umpires Association, significantly decreased the margin of error for umpires in their evaluations — and has resulted in fewer called strikes off the edges of the plate through the same point as last season. For the past two decades, umpires were working with a “buffer zone” that gave them 2 inches of leeway — on all sides of the plate, inside and outside the strike zone — when they were graded on how accurately they called balls and strikes. Now, however, that buffer zone has shrunk, from 2 inches on all sides to just three-quarters of an inch on all sides, inside and outside the strike zone, according to league sources briefed on the change but not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. An MLB official confirmed that the buffer zone had decreased in size. Spoiler The intent of the buffer zone change is simple: to call the rulebook strike zone more accurately. But the real-life impact seems to have caught pitchers and catchers in particular off guard, even though the definition of the actual strike zone remains the same. An MLB official said, “The rulebook strike zone has not changed and we have not instructed umpires to call a different strike zone. In response to consistent player and club desire to have umpires evaluated more closely to the rulebook strike zone, we agreed with the MLB Umpires Association in their new CBA to reduce the size of the ‘buffer’ around the border of the strike zone, which essentially protects an umpire from being graded ‘incorrect’ on extremely close misses. “We informed the GMs and Field Managers that we were seeking this change during the offseason,” the official said, “and again informed the Clubs when the umpire CBA was ratified. Overall ball-strike accuracy in 2025 is the highest it has ever been through this point in the season.” The data shows that this season’s strike calls are the most accurate since Statcast began tracking pitches in 2015. Nevertheless, players interviewed about this change say the strike zone feels noticeably smaller. … “We pulled the numbers of strikes that were called balls in the first week of the season, this year versus last year,” d’Arnaud said. “Last year, there were like 300 or so. This year, (we found) like 550 at the same point in time, with strikes that are called balls.” The Athletic wasn’t able to replicate d’Arnaud’s exact query in a Statcast search, but results showed this April had the most called balls on pitches inside the strike zone since 2017 — which isn’t surprising, given the reduction of the buffer zone. Baseball’s big-picture offensive numbers so far would suggest that the change to the buffer zone has not had a major statistical impact. League batting average is up compared with March/April 2024. The strikeout rate is down. And while the walk rate is up slightly, it’s within the range of common year-to-year fluctuations. All of those developments are positives for a sport in which it has gotten tougher than ever to hit. Asked if this is what hitters want — for the strike zone to be called more like the rulebook strike zone — Astros first baseman Christian Walker replied, “Always.” “That’s what we’re doing out there,” he said. “As a hitter, is it over the plate or not? We all get frustrated when we feel calls don’t go our way. But give those (umpires) credit. It’s a tough job, man. These guys are throwing nasty pitches at nearly 100 mph, so I think some forgiveness around the zone is totally understandable.” According to Statcast data from Baseball Savant, the change in how balls and strikes are being called averages out to about one fewer called strike per game. But pitchers still believe that’s not an insignificant number. Players and clubs also have pointed to the number of pitches no longer being called strikes in what Baseball Savant refers to as “the shadow zone,” an area around the strike zone that is the width of a baseball. (The shadow zone is similar to the buffer zone, but not the same — Statcast uses the former, and umpires the latter.) The drop in called strikes in that area is the largest, at this point in the season, since Statcast began pitch tracking.
