Umpires blew 855 strikeouts in the first half.
That doesn’t even amount to one blown strikeout per game, does it?
Sounds right, but keep in mind they are not talking about missed calls. They are talking about strikeouts that should not have happened on that pitch.
As usual, many of these are beautiful frame jobs. A standout is the one by the Phillies on Ben May starting 0:22 - look at that thing, and tell me you would have called it right without the pitchfx overlay. Absolutely beautiful execution there.
That said, for a number of these the catcher was surprisingly rough in yanking the ball back into the zone from quite some distance, to a degree that the umpire should have been wiser to it. The one by the Mariners on Edwin Moscoso starting 0:42 is frankly shocking: The catcher does do an impressive job considering the pitch was way further outside than he was set up for, but his glove is moving away from the umpire when he catches the ball and then swoops it up, despite the pitch being plenty high enough to begin with. Moscoso mucked up that call badly.
Even in that one, though, I can’t speak too harshly of the catcher’s performance, especially after multiple watchthroughs. Many of these are textbook handling, with varying techniques: there’s a lot of the classic approach here where the catcher sets up at the target, drifts their glove off the plate in the direction of the pitch, and makes a “last minute adjustment” to make the pitch look closer to the zone than it actually was. Significant representation from the newer (to the best of my knowledge, anyway, I know Tyler Flowers was big on this) technique of letting the glove hand hang loosely at the bottom of the zone, bringing it off the plate in the direction of the place, and sweeping back across while catching the ball during that movement and inevitably settling around the middle of the zone. You even get a good old “catch it like it went exactly where you wanted it” at 0:48, where the catcher brings the glove up to the spot the pitch was going but makes only the subtlest movement towards the zone as he catches the ball. It’s hard for an umpire to (subconsciously) read that as anything other than a perfectly executed pitch, and thus a strike.
In short, this is to me a demonstration of impressive control and finesse by the catchers, rather than an umpiring blooper reel. I enjoy watching this aspect of the sport, and I don’t want it to go away.
