The star-studded squads of the USA and the Dominican Republic faced off in the World Baseball Classic semifinals for a game that came down to a dramatic ninth inning, only to end on a horrible strike three call on a full count with the tying run on third base.
The Americans will certainly take it, coming away with a 2-1 win to advance to the WBC Final. But it was an extremely unfortunate way for the Dominican Republic to go out, and a lame way for an incredible matchup to come to an end.
If the pitch had been called correctly by home plate umpire Corey Blaser, the Dominican Republic would have had first-and-third with two outs and San Diego Padres star Fernando Tatís Jr. coming to the plate. Instead, the team’s tournament is over, and its championship hopes are crushed, on a call that was out of its hands.
Fox Sports announcers Joe Davis and John Smoltz had the television call for FS1, and they didn’t take long after the pitch to point out that Arizona Diamondbacks star Geraldo Perdomo and the Dominicans would have been aided by the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System. While the ABS is making its Major League Baseball debut this season, the system wasn’t implemented for the WBC.
“That slider right there that was below the zone,” Smoltz, the 1996 NL Cy Young Award winner, said. “And… one team reacting. The other just stunned.”
“Thinking, ‘You sure we don’t have ABS yet?'” Davis responded. “‘You sure we can’t challenge that?’, Perdomo and the Dominican Republic are wondering. And they’ll have to wonder what would have happened with Fernando Tatís Jr. standing on deck.”
The MLB on Fox studio analyst crew of Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, and Derek Jeter shared their thoughts on the game-ending call during the postgame show.
“It’s just a tough way to end a really good game,” host Kevin Burkhardt told the former MLB stars.
“Yeah, and it is,” Rodriguez said. “A ball that’s about four inches down. Too close to take. But this is Cory Blaser’s hot zone. And it’s down. And sure enough, it lived (up) to his scouting report. But you just hate, Papi (Ortiz), to end a game this big, with these type of consequences, on a pitch that’s not a strike.”
“I’ve got to tell you- if you’re calling a 101, 102 mph on top of the zone a strike, you cannot go down there and call that pitch a strike also,” Ortiz, a Dominican baseball legend, said. “You’re expanding the strike zone against this batter and facing a really good pitcher.”
“Well, you can pretty much guarantee they’re going to have the challenge system in place for the next WBC, right?” Jeter said. “You hate to end a game that way. But, you give credit to the U.S. They not only pitched well; they hit the two home runs, they played great defense… The U.S. deserves to go to the finals.”
Mason Miller is the most difficult pitcher to hit on the planet, especially when he gets the strike zone that Blaser gave him on the 3-2 pitch. And in fairness to Blaser, while it was a brutal call, it’s an incredibly difficult challenge for the human eye to properly detect filthy 89 mph sliders (and when also geared up for the possibility of Miller throwing 103 mph fastballs). That’s why the ABS is so helpful and can do a better job of preventing games from being decided for reasons that aren’t the players’ or managers’ fault.
As Jeter said, the ABS will surely be added for the next WBC, but that won’t make the Dominicans feel any better about the way this ended.
Team USA will face the winner of the Venezuela-Italy semifinal on Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. The Americans will have the chance to secure their second WBC title.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.