ST. LOUIS (AP) — Rob Refsnyder's challenge that led to his go-ahead home run was one of eight successful challenges by the Seattle Mariners and St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday.
Refsnyder lifted the Mariners to a 3-2 win in the game that featured nine challenges of plate umpire John Bacon's calls. Refsnyder had his third strike overturned in the ninth inning by the Automated Ball-Strike system before hitting JoJo Romero's pitch 412 feet into the left-field
bullpen.
“It’s tough when you’re not playing every day. Sometimes you lose sight of the strike zone,” said Refsnyder, who was making his first ABS challenge. “But that felt really outside. Thankful for the challenge system.”
Bacon had seven calls overturned in his two previous games behind home plate.
Cardinals catcher Iván Herrera, who successfully had four balls overturned into strikes for his pitchers in the game, said Romero’s pitch was outside of the zone.
“Umpires are humans," Herrera said. "We’re all going to make mistakes. Sometimes I don’t even know whether it’s a ball or a strike. It was just a pitch that was out of the zone.”
JJ Wetherholt had the game’s first unsuccessful challenge attempting to overturn a strike call in the ninth before he fouled out to end the game.
“Today, it worked in our favor. Tomorrow, it might not,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “It’s hard to say, but this is becoming a part of baseball. It is a part of baseball. So, I think, using it in a way that can help you out as much as possible is what our guys are going to try to do.”
Umpire C.B. Bucknor was in the spotlight a few weeks ago when he had six calls overturned by the ball-strike system in a Boston-Cincinnati game, including back-to-back strikes turned into balls during a Eugenio Suárez at-bat.
“It's the first year I’ve ever done it," Refsnyder said. “So, it’s not super natural to kind of question the umpire like that.”
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