The Yankees’ hopes of going 162-0 were quashed on Monday, as the Mariners won in walk-off fashion 2-1 to open up a three-game set with the Bombers. New York was getting shut down against Luis Castillo, a common occurrence at this point against the Mariner ace, but managed to tie the game shortly after he exited only to have the bullpen get stretched too thin in relief of Ryan Weathers. Paul Blackburn was the choice to pitch the eighth and ninth innings, and while he handled the former things quickly got out of hand in the latter leading to Cal Raleigh’s RBI single to end it.
The underlying story of the game, however, was the Yankees challenging early and often against home plate umpire Mike Estabrook’s strike zone, succeeding each and every time. They converted five strikes into balls on successful challenges, including two in a José Caballero at-bat that turned a strikeout into a walk and a Giancarlo Stanton would-be strikeout that kept him alive long enough to hit a single. Aaron Boone even felt the need to chirp at Estabrook after the Stanton challenge to get the calls right, proving that even with the ability to overturn calls Boone will still find a way to continue his beef with umpires and potentially grow his record pace of getting tossed from games.
All of this is leadup to ask the question that many are asking themselves already: why not let ABS be the law of the land for every ball and strike? There’s been dozens of converted calls already as teams have figured out that the catcher and hitter stand the best chance of recognizing a bad call, and the Yankees have benefitted tremendously from Austin Wells’ recognition of the strike zone behind the plate as he’s been the best in the early-going at getting strikes back for his pitchers. He’s far from the only one, as players around the league have already made umpires look quite silly for some of the calls they make. Surely getting the calls right has proven to be essential after so many have already been shown to be off on a consistent basis.
There’s a logistical and cultural pushback to that response, to be fair. The umpire’s union will fight tooth and nail to keep umps relevant in the game, and they likely don’t want to cede control of the strike zone over completely just because of a few games-worth of hype for a new system. But there’s also a healthy portion of the audience that wouldn’t want them to do that anyway — the purists who have always argued in favor of the human element in the game wouldn’t want the umpires thrown to the side either. And there’s a point to be made that the ABS challenge system we have right now is a skill to utilize that rewards players who confidently know the strike zone, which is fun to watch in its own right. Sure, getting an egregious call overturned here and there is an easy call to make, but all of the Yankees’ challenges last night were on pitches that strayed only an inch or so away from the strike zone — those are calls that New York is making because they have players with elite understanding of the zone, and some other teams wouldn’t make those challenges in the same position. It’s exciting to see a batter call his shot or a catcher claim that his pitcher hit the mark, and I’m personally quite content with where ABS has landed at the moment. But where do you fall, are you satisfied with ABS functioning as a show of skill or do you want it to be freely administered?
Today on the site, Michael leads off with a recap of what Triple-A Scranton got up to in their first week of play as the minor leagues get underway. Peter follows up with the first At-Bat of the Week featuring Aaron Judge’s first bomb of the year (and his first ABS challenge), and Jonathan wishes Chien-Ming Wang a happy birthday as he reflects on his Yankees career. Matt creates the Yankees’ All-March Birthday Team to continue his year-long quest to round out each month’s roster, and Jeff reacts to the Yankees’ low placement in The Athletic’s recent “Hope O’Meter” poll.
Today’s Matchup
New York Yankees at Seattle Mariners
Time: 9:40 p.m. EST
Video: YES Network, Mariners.tv, TBS (out-of-market, only)
Venue: T-Mobile Park, Seattle, WA
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