Didn’t see this game yesterday- I am becoming like Chris Russo who calls himself a sports talk expert but never watches a game- but it sounds like the Red Sox got screwed by some lousy umpiring.  There will be more on this story, because now there is just too much information out there.  Tony Lee will give you the background information on just how the end of the game went down, but its Pete Abraham’s blog post- which came to him via a reader and Brooks Baseball, that tells the real story.  The Blue Jays got the calls yesterday- the Red Sox did not.

The question is was it really that intentional?  Was it trying to keep the Red Sox from slowing down the game?  Or was it one of those benefit of the doubt for a less well known pitcher?  Or is it just that Dale Scott didn’t want a tie ballgame?

Another thought might be that since Wakefield started the game, he is a knuckleballer and though that means his pitches have a crazy ability to move, they also are slower- maybe that allowed Scott to visually track them into the zone better- or perhaps he just expected a bunch of pitches to be out of the zone.  Marcum, who pitched for the Blue Jays is a little more traditional, and so maybe things looked like strikes that weren’t.  Maybe too the Toronto catcher is better at catching and framing where the ball lands for the umpire, and so got his pitcher some calls he shouldn’t have.

You can see there might be a lot of reasons why this could have happened.

I must say I will always want the umpires on the field as part of the game, making calls.  Taking them away would make me stop watching.  After all, if every call needs to be reviewed by TV and computers, it just wont be fun. Besides, I admire a veteran pitcher that can expand the strike zone as the game goes on.  But when you see this evidence, when you think about how tired an umpire must get hunched behind the plate, you have to wonder just how umpiring will move forward.  You just have to.