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Phil Cuzzi is Another Example of Why Major League Baseball Needs Robot Umps
By Luke Arcaini
Published:
Phil Cuzzi turned in one of the worst umpiring performances ever seen in the Phillies’ Monday night loss to the Giants.
It started to get really bad during Bryce Harper’s at-bat in the top of the 8th. Harper was up following a Kyle Schwarber leadoff single to start the inning. Cuzzi called two balls out of the zone a strike, which put Harper down in the count 0-2, which would lead to him fouling a couple pitches off and then grounding out.
But nobody had it worse than Orion Kerkering. Don’t get me wrong, Kerkering had a rough inning hitting two batters. It was his first bad one in a long time. But Kerkering struck out Matt Chapman three separate times and every pitch was called a ball. He went down 0-2 on Chapman, threw three straight strikes, they were all called balls, and then Chapman poked a single through the right side. Take a look at the pitch chart below. All of those green dots were called balls:
Rob Thomson has never been a fiery guy. I don’t always believe in just getting tossed to get tossed. But the Phillies are 0 for their last 24 with runners in scoring position. They’re 7-26 in their last 33 games at Oracle Park. If there was ever a time to get tossed, it was after that at-bat. To play the other side, what does getting tossed truly do? Yes, it may light a fire under the guys. But the Phillies had a chance to win that ballgame even after that at-bat. If seven guys in the dugout lose their mind, Cuzzi probably gets even worse in the top half of the 9th.
Caleb Cotham let Cuzzi hear it during the at-bat. That’s included in this 80 second video of all of Cuzzi’s missed calls throughout Monday night’s loss:
Cuzzi’s scorecard is even worse than I thought it’d be:
Luke Arcaini writes about the Phillies for Crossing Broad, covers the Phillies for FOX Sports The Gambler, and co-hosts "Phillies Digest" on YouTube. The wave is the worst thing in all of sports. Contact: lukearcaini8@gmail.com