Seattle Mariners: Be Careful MLB and Umpire’s Union, We Know What You’re Doing
Direct employees of Major League Baseball are sabotaging the Seattle Mariner’s efforts to reach the playoffs. Umpires. Sure, they have a union. But come on, this certainly makes sense, right. Because if it isn’t an organized effort, what does their performance say about their overall competency or simple ability to do their jobs?
Evidence Mounts
How many times have you seen this? A Seattle hitter (even ones not named Julio Rodriguez) takes a pitch outside the strike zone only to be called a strike. Normally, I might even chalk this up as a ploy for the umpires to bring in the automatic strike zone. The hole in that theory is that Mariners’ pitchers rarely get the same treatment.
Let’s move along to last weekend and the phantom tag on Jarred Kelenic when he stole second base. In 2016, MLB ruled that the laces of a glove no longer constitute being part of the glove for the purpose of tagging a player out. Yet Brandon Lowe’s laces might’ve touched Kelenic’s cleats, and that is all. Guess what?
They called him out, even after a replay review. Later the president of umpiring said something along the lines of, “We couldn’t tell if he was tagged or not.” I’ve seen this play at least twenty times, and twenty out of twenty times, I could tell he was safe. Even Stevie Wonder can tell Lowe didn’t tag Kelenic.
rangers pitchers called strikes vs. mariners pitchers called strikes pic.twitter.com/O87XapvmiL
— Scott DiGiorgio (@scottydg1) April 22, 2022