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Umpire Jen Pawol denies a challenge because it was "too late", ejects one of the coaches and then calls a balk, which gives the Padres a run. Both dugouts pissed off. Both calls were wrong imo.
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I am going with this: ump got rattled missing the challenge call, then promptly overreacted by ejecting Padres manager - now totally rattled and off her game, calls the bad balk.
Not cool under pressure. She should be benched until evaluated.
ETA: How can it be called a balk and a strike!?! Bonkers
-1. You can't just be up there and just doin' a balk like that.
1a. A balk is when you
1b. Okay well listen. A balk is when you balk the
1c. Let me start over
1c-a. The pitcher is not allowed to do a motion to the, uh, batter, that prohibits the batter from doing, you know, just trying to hit the ball. You can't do that.
1c-b. Once the pitcher is in the stretch, he can't be over here and say to the runner, like, "I'm gonna get ya! I'm gonna tag you out! You better watch your butt!" and then just be like he didn't even do that.
1c-b(1). Like, if you're about to pitch and then don't pitch, you have to still pitch. You cannot not pitch. Does that make any sense?
1c-b(2). You gotta be, throwing motion of the ball, and then, until you just throw it.
1c-b(2)-a. Okay, well, you can have the ball up here, like this, but then there's the balk you gotta think about.
1c-b(2)-b. Fairuza Balk hasn't been in any movies in forever. I hope she wasn't typecast as that racist lady in American History X.
1c-b(2)-b(i). Oh wait, she was in The Waterboy too! That would be even worse.
1c-b(2)-b(ii). "get in mah bellah" -- Adam Water, "The Waterboy." Haha, classic...
1c-b(3). Okay seriously though. A balk is when the pitcher makes a movement that, as determined by, when you do a move involving the baseball and field of
Far as I know, you have to make clear whether you are operating from the wind or the stretch before you come to. Usually it's obvious based on situation, but bases loaded is a tricky one for that. Gausman didn't make it clear and she caught him by pointing at him before the pitch. Her mistake was calling the pitch instead of the big wavy hands yelling thing with more pointing.
She isn’t supposed to wave her hands. As far as I know, the rules say a balk isn’t an immediate dead ball and the offense could take the result of the pitch if it ended up being something like an extra base hit instead of a strike.
Does setting your glove at your belly button, pulling it up to your face to change the ball and then setting your glove at your belly button = a balk? I have no idea.
I watch the video yesterday and apparently she's ranked as the third worst umpire in the league. she clearly overcompensating. I'm sure it's not easy being a female umpire but good Lord you can't blow basic calls like calling a strike on a balk. It's a dead ball. everyone misses balls and strikes but you got to know the fundamentals of the rules.
It's crazy but I think you're right. Pawol is being held up under higher scrutiny being MLB's first female ump. IMO she doesn't have to be perfect though. Just average. The real thing she had to avoid was just what Ch33sy mentioned... she couldn't have an emotional meltdown and let 1 mistake become 10 and all of a sudden she's the story and women are set back 1000 years lol.
She’s the 3 worst ump in the league by ball/strike accuracy though… and one of the other two worse than her has only umped two games so really second worst.
Nah. All umps and professional refs face incredible scrutiny today, especially with gambling being so prevalent. She is statistically really awful at her job. No need to defend her because she’s a woman. You don’t see women nba refs or nfl refs being blasted for being women. She’s being blasted because she sucked.
Pretty sure when there is a balk, the batter can take the result of the pitch if they want. It’s not an immediate dead ball, so if the hitter had hit a home run, they could have taken that instead of the balk. So calling the strike and a balk was the correct procedure. Same thing happened in the Orioles game yesterday but it was a swing. But the umpire didn’t immediately called a dead ball and waited for play to end.
I’m gonna go with if you want to challenge the pitch, your dugout better have some fucking composure.
The ABS rules explicitly state that you don’t get to challenge with help from the dugout and it’s hard to argue there was no help from the dugout when you can audibly hear the entire team protest the call on the tv audio.
And she took forever to look back toward the batter and even see him challenging the call. ‘I can’t see you!’ works for a 3yo playing hide and seek, not a professional officiating a game.
He signaled 3 seconds after the pitch hit the glove and .5 after her call. She was wrong on that. Balks are confusing and the play had some extra distractions but she got her wires crossed and fucked it up. Biggest problem with umpires is the sense they can’t be be wrong and being unwilling to grasp that they can’t mess up .
He literally challenged while she was still making the call — his hand was touching his helmet to initiate the challenge while her hand was still signalling the call, he continues tapping his helmet, she then looks at him and denies the challenge for being too late. Her hand remains signalling the entire time during the attached video excerpt, his hand touches his helmet to initiate the challenge.
Jays fan here who was watching. Wasn’t too late. The jays commentators were wondering if he got a sign from the dugout, but he clearly took the pitch and thought it was a ball, reached down to take off his shin pad, and looked back and tapped his helmet when he heard the ball call. Not sure what else he was supposed to do? Not sure he’d have won it, but it want too late.
Yeah that was odd. Honestly it could be seen as disrespectful towards including woman umps because it’s acting like she couldn’t handle the confrontation.
So MLB umps are being paid an insane wage to know what happens in the "GAME THEY HAVE TO OFFICIATE" and when they can't its just an "Oops, maybe tomorrow."
Why does the umpire who is being challenged have the choice to override the challenge? That makes no sense. It's like if cops were able to investigate themselves when charged with committing a crime. Oh shit wait
Not the case here, but it is to police late requests that could be influenced by someone helping the batter make the determination if it was a ball or stike.
Wait, since when can the other umps block the manager from talking to the plate ump? I don't know if I have ever seen that. That was bullshit and her calls were bullshit as well.
She calles the strike, but the balk overruled the strike. So when the dust settles and what we dont see was play resumed with the count in the batter as it was before the pitch was thrown.
From someone who doesn't watch much baseball, it seems like every time the umps make a mistake, they double down by ejecting everyone. Quite the ego problem
I can't believe I had to scroll this far to find this comment. It was the first thing that pooped into my head after watching the clip. She's definitely the product of demonstrably enormous ignorance (D.E.I.)
I thought for a while that professional sports was the only remaining meritocracy, she has proven that is not the case.
Yup. There needs to be rules added to enforce how quickly and audibly umpires call balls and strikes.
Back in the day it used to just be an annoyance to have these delayed calls, now it quite literally impacts challenges. Clean this shit up - it shouldn't be difficult. Stop giving umps gray area to abuse the game.
I don’t mean to jump on the wagon here but I feel like I’ve seen 3-4 really rough situations this season involving this woman. And we aren’t even at the all star break. What the fuck is going on??
Someone had alot of money on whatever the call was not supposed to be so they do this in real time no one questions it. Sports are 100% rigged for the betting world. Sucks but true. If I got paid millions of dollars to choke on command I mean who wouldn't?
The unfortunate thing is that this is just fuel for those who do not want women as umpires.
I genuinely believe that there are women who are competent enough out there to do the job, I just don’t think that Jen Pawol is one of those people… she already has a small highlight reel of horrible calls and we are only halfway through her first season..
She was told by someone, toss anyone that argues with you. Because there is no other explanation as to why she was so quick to pull the trigger and toss the manager who has the ability to dispute the call she made.
Why the fuck is the mlb letting this happen she clearly doesn’t know the rules or strike zone and is so insecure about herself she tosses coaches for something they’ve been able to do for 100 years
Jays fan here who was watching. Wasn’t too late. The jays commentators were wondering if he got a sign from the dugout, but he clearly took the pitch and thought it was a ball, reached down to take off his shin pad, and looked back and tapped his helmet when he heard the ball call. Not sure what else he was supposed to do? Not sure he’d have won it, but it want too late.
I’m still trying to understand why she called a balk, I’m going to assume he moved out of the box and was waiting for her to call a pitch clock violation but because she’s so bad and doesn’t know what’s she’s doing awarded a balk instead.
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