Arizona Diamondbacks Blown Calls of the Week: September 5-12

This week’s discussion of the automated strike zone comes from our current opponents, the Colorado Rockies, and stems from a call in the game against us on Sep 1. This was a pivotal one which benefited Arizona, A.J. Pollock walking rather than being rung up, and the D-backs went on to score five runs that inning. The pitcher, Adam Ottavino is thoroughly on board with the idea of an automated zone: “Yes, a thousand percent yes. Every pitch is too important. I respect the umpires and the work they do, but it’s physically impossible to get all of the calls right... I like the players to decide the outcome of the game, not human error by umpires.”

Summary

• An extra day this round, so seven games in total. There were 48 bad calls, an average of 6.9, a 25% improvement over last week’s ugly figure of 9.2. But there was a very wide spread in the numbers per game.
• Both home and away games went against the Diamondbacks, but the overall difference (-8) was entirely due to a single, particularly bad game. The difference over the two games in Los Angeles was 7-13, while the five at Chase Field were much closer to even, at 13-15.
• The totals for the year
  Overall: 519-583 (47.1% favor the D-backs)
  Home: 265-278 (48.8%)
  Road: 254-305 (45.4%)
• Best-called game: Sep 12, 2-4 vs. COL (Tom Woodring). Last night’s game against the Rockies at Chase Field came close to giving @DiamondbacksUmp the night off, with just two missed calls all night. That makes it one of the best games of the season.
• Worst-called game: Sep 6, 3-1 vs. LAD (Chad Fairchild). The same cannot be said for Fairchild last Wednesday in Los Angeles. As the chart below shows, almost nothing above the belly button was called a strike, with a tight zone. And one which seemed to be skewed towards the Dodgers, with 11 of the 14 mistakes being ones which helped them. However, the D-backs still prevailed.

• Worst confirmed call. This comes from the same game, and can also be seen in the chart above (remembering to flip the view). Even by the low standards of the night, this was a bad one, and likely among the worst this year.

The individual games

Sep 5, 3-1 @ LAD (David Rackley)

• 6 bad calls (1.88% of pitches)
• 4 help, 2 hurt
• 1 outrageously bad call
• Bad call score: 500
• Worst call

Sep 6, 3-1 @ LAD (Chad Fairchild)

• 14 bad calls (4.67% of pitches)
• 3 help, 11 hurt
• 6 outrageously bad call
• Bad call score: 1,240
• Worst call

Sep 8, 6-10 vs. SDP (Bill Welke)

• 5 bad calls (1.56% of pitches)
• 1 help, 4 hurt
• 2 outrageously bad calls
• Bad call score: 416
• Worst call

Sep 9, 7-8 vs. SDP (Jordan Baker)

• 9 bad calls (2.65% of pitches)
• 4 help, 5 hurt
• 0 outrageously bad calls
• Bad call score: 752
• Worst call

Sep 10, 3-2 vs. SDP (Tom Woodring)

• 4 bad calls (1.48% of pitches)
• 3 help, 1 hurt
• 1 outrageously bad call
• Bad call score: 336
• Worst call

Sep 11, 4-5 vs. COL (Tom Woodring)

• 8 bad calls (2.68% of pitches)
• 3 help, 5 hurt
• 1 outrageously bad call
• Bad call score: 668
• Worst call

Sep 12, 2-4 vs. COL (Tom Woodring)

• 2 bad calls (0.76% of pitches)
• 2 help, 0 hurt
• 1 outrageously bad call
• Bad call score: 178
• Worst call