The Blue Jays hosted the Yankees Tuesday night, and the highlight of the entire game was a pitch that simply went from Masahiro Tanaka’s hand to Gary Sanchez’s glove.
It was this called ball, which was clearly a strike:
Angel Hernandez is just awful. Awful! pic.twitter.com/PyPHLlA5Jc
— Max Wildstein (@MaxWildstein) June 5, 2019
That pitch was right down the middle of the plate. In fairness to home plate umpire Angel Hernandez, you could argue it didn’t help that Sanchez stabbed at the pitch. But still, whew, that’s a clear as day strike.
Sanchez and Tanaka couldn’t even bring themselves to show so much outrage because it was so egregious. That’s one where you just have to move on. It’s Actually Funny.
The Yankees ended up losing, 4-3, but this particular pitch doesn’t really matter, it’s one regular-season game. What would be tragic, if this were, say, the NLCS and a record 15 strikeouts were recorded in the widest strike zone in Major League Baseball history.
That probably (no wait, definitely, it definitely did) cost the Braves a second World Series. Anyway, back to business here ...
Being an official in any sport is a difficult job, not just because of how fast professional sports move, but because of all the shit they have to take from fans.
That said, Tanaka didn’t just brush the corner with that pitch. He was in Photoshop and used the paint bucket tool on the plate — the pitch covered it. That missed call was as atrocious, if not more so, than the no-call pass interference from the NFC Championship between the Rams and Saints.
However, it doesn’t matter nearly as much, so we can all laugh about it. Though this Falcons fan laughed at the Saints misfortune as well.