Game Day: Tuesday, June 2nd
It's the top of the first inning in yesterday's Nationals versus Marlins' game from Nationals' Park in Washington DC.
Cade Cavalli walks Liam Hicks. Otto Lopez collects a base-hit. Kyle Stowers lays down a sacrifice bunt, moving a pair of runners into scoring position. Cavalli walks Xavier Edwards to load the bases with one out.
Cavalli nails Leo Jimenez on a 100 mph four seamer. Swing and miss. Two down.
Owen Caissie steps into the batter's box. Caissie is a left-handed hitter. First pitch fastball, Caissie takes a strike. When Cavalli gets ahead in the count, he likes to work his four-seamer up in the zone, especially against lefties. He throws Caissie a pair of 98 mph heaters. Both pitches are well high for balls. He misses with the knuckle curve and it's a 3-1 count. On 3-1, Cavalli dials it back. He commands his sinker better than the four-seamer and drops a 96 mph fastball on the inside of the plate.
"Strike Two", calls the umpire.
Caissie taps his helmet for the ABS challenge.
The ABS overturns the call, Caissie takes his base, Cavalli's third walk of the inning. 1-0 Marlins.
This is a prime example of how the ABS and hitters like Owen Caissie will ruin baseball. Caissie gets his pitch on 3-1, a fastball on the inside of the plate, and he leaves his bat on his shoulder in favor of an ABS challenge. Caissie isn't being aggressive at the plate and is hoping for a walk.
The bases are loaded. You're supposed to be a bigtime slugger. You get a fastball in your wheelhouse and you take the pitch. Not only do you take the pitch, you pass on the opportunity to hit with a full count and the bases loaded. You are almost guaranteed another fastball over the plate and you pass on that for a walk? This guy doesn't want to hit and is afraid of striking out and now he has the ABS on his side to give him a free pass on taking a passive approach to hitting in a critical situation of the game.
Umpires are charged with calling close pitches and often they ring up hitters who aren't up at the plate to swing the bat. That dynamic is what has kept the spirit of the game alive for a century. Swing the bat. Be aggressive. Taking a 3-1 fastball inside is questionable. Calling for the ABS when you still have an opportunity to collect a big hit and a pair of RBIs is ridiculous. As a hitter, you should be up at the plate in that situation chomping at the bit for the opportunity to get a pitch to hit. Caissie passed on a 3-1 fastball, passed on the opportunity to hit with a full count and the bases loaded in lieu of an ABS challenge and a walk and the fans lost a big moment in that game.
Those moments in the game are what make the game so great. The fact that the ABS is in place and the games are losing a big moment here and a big moment there, it's having an effect.
The entire flow of the game is interrupted with every call for instant replay and with every ABS challenge. Hitters are thinking more about calling balls and strikes than they are about hitting the ball out of the park.
Fans, instead of sitting on the edge of their seats awaiting the pay-off pitch, instead of celebrating an umpire punching out a hitter with his bat on his shoulder, were resigned to an ABS challenge and a bases-loaded walk.
The game moves on but it's like missing a piece of a puzzle. You can't fully wrap your head around the puzzle without the missing piece. You can make out the picture but that missing piece is a conundrum. You're resigned to it. You can't find the missing piece anywhere. You break the puzzle apart and put it back in the box, almost finished. There is no real payoff. There is no completion.
ABS challenges are going to lead to the same sort of laissez-faire, non-challance, and the games will eventually become uninteresting all together. The entire sport will, in time, be disintegrated. Moment after important moment will be truncated. Every time the momentum builds it will be thwarted by an ABS challenge and slowly the entire game will become one long, boring fucking simulation.
It's a travesty if you ask me about. Owen Caissie is a wimpy hitter. I'd send him down to the minors and he wouldn't be back up for the remainder of the season. It is one of the most egregious and dispicable calls for the ABS that I have acknowledged this season.
That's it for game day this Tuesday, the first Tuesday of June. It's a full slate of games this evening, all 30 teams are in action. Let's see if we can extract a winner tonight. Stay tuned for Today's Pick.