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MLB officiating is under fire once again as a string of questionable calls ended a dominant start from San Diego Padres pitcher Yu Darvish. Darvish was perfect through five innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks, but his perfect game was ended on questionable calls from the officials.
Talkin' Baseball uploaded a clip of the at-bat to Twitter, where you can see the surprising amount of balls called on what looked like strikes.
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Being an MLB umpire is one of the most thankless jobs on the planet. Every decision made is under a microscope and dissected, sometimes for a very long time. These poor calls can change the game, and fans are sick of seeing consistent errors.
The biggest issue with MLB officiating from the outside looking in is a lack of accountability. If a player is consistently unable to get on base or play good defense, they won't last long in the league. Umpires seemingly have an infinite amount of leeway to make mistakes and show little to no improvement without facing repercussions.
The solution that gets floated every time there is an incident like this is the concept of robot umps, allowing technology to assist in calls that are meant to be as objective as possible. There is no timetable for this process to be implemented as things currently stand.
The San Diego Padres and Yu Darvish had a chance at history that ended far sooner than they expected.
The MLB and their fans want to see games decided by the players on the field, not the umpires
We have seen officiating errors like this cost teams a win multiple times during the season. If these issues persist in the playoffs, the level of fan frustration will increase at an exponential rate. However, a blown call on a massive stage could perhaps be the inciting incident needed for the MLB to finally attempt to solve the issue.
At this point, it seems like the MLB is content with the level of officiating even if the fans are not.
