When you’re a superstar to the level of Los Angeles do-it-all player Shohei Ohtani, you might expect to get the benefit of the doubt on some close calls from time to time. But that’s certainly not what happened to Ohtani this week.
During Friday night’s game against the Houston Astros on Friday night, Shohei Ohtani was on the receiving end of an absolutely brutal called ball from home plate umpire Ron Kulpa, leading to quite an interesting interaction between Kulpa and Ohtani between innings.
“Was that up?” Ohtani asked
“Yup,” the umpire replied.
“Or in?” Ohtani asked.
“And in,” the umpire replied.
“Oh,” Ohtani said. “Both.”
Unfortunately, that explanation does not match up with reality. As the video shows, the pitch in question was neither up nor was it inside – it was perfectly on the upper inside corner of the plate and should have been called a strike, according to the box.
It’s definitely a borderline pitch on the edge of the strike zone that could have been called either way, but the interaction between Ohtani and Kulpa with the umpire confidently explaining to him that the pitch was both high and inside did not make the call any better.
This certainly won’t do much to silence cries for automated balls and strikes calls in the future.
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