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Sunday, June 2, 2013

MLB Ejection 056: Bill Welke (1; Terry Francona)

HP Umpire Bill Welke ejected Indians Manager Terry Francona for arguing a called first strike in the bottom of the 5th inning of the Rays-Indians game. With one out and two on, Indians batter Nick Swisher took a 1-0
Tito argues after being relieved of duty.
fastball for a called first strike. Replays indicate the pitch was located belt high & off the outer edge of home plate (px -1.099), the call was incorrect. At the time of the ejection, the Rays were leading, 7-3. The Rays ultimately won the contest, 11-3.

This is Bill Welke (52)'s first ejection of 2013.
Bill Welke now has -2 points in the UEFL (0 Previous + 2 MLB + -4 Incorrect Call = -2).
Crew Chief Fieldin Culbreth now has 1 point in the UEFL's Crew Division (1 Previous + 0 Incorrect = 1).

This is the 56th ejection of 2013.
This is the 28th Manager ejection of 2013.
This is the Indians' 3rd ejection of 2013, 1st in the AL Central (CLE 3; KC 2; DET, MIN 1; CWS 0).
This is Terry Francona's first ejection since August 13, 2011 (Mark Ripperger; QOC = Y).
This is Bill Welke's first ejection since August 31, 2012 (Nelson Cruz; QOC = Y).

Wrap: Tampa Bay Rays vs. Cleveland Indians, 6/2/13
Video: After disputing Welke's strike zone Sunday, Francona tossed and charges out to yell (CLE)
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10 comments:

  1. LindsayJune 2, 2013 at 12:44 PM

    Yadier Molina and Mike Matheny were tossed by Clint Fagan arguing an out call at first. Looking at the replay it appears that Clint absolutely nailed it. Nice job!

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  2. LindsayJune 2, 2013 at 12:59 PM

    This has been an awesome weekend for the UEFL.

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  3. LindsayJune 2, 2013 at 2:20 PM

    Interesting, I think this is the first time that a TV Pitch Tracker has it as a strike when it was not.

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  4. LindsayJune 2, 2013 at 3:25 PM

    Maybe now everyone won't believe me every time I say its a strike/ball...

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  5. LindsayJune 2, 2013 at 6:13 PM

    Even for TV trackers this is an awful example. I may be wrong and the visual may simply be misleading, but it looks like the tracker bases the strike zone on what the camera is seeing (rather than some other tracking system, though for all I know all TV trackers do that) and since the camera is off-center...

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  6. LindsayJune 2, 2013 at 9:53 PM

    This appears a correct assessment of what happened here and why TV trackers are not always reliable. Generally speaking, the computerized graphs such as Pitch f/x are SportsVision's touted "within 1/2-inch accuracy" system and are usually reliable. What we see here is an overlayed strike zone. Usually, the overlay images placed directly over the real-life home plate are inaccurate and unscientific.

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  7. LindsayJune 3, 2013 at 8:35 AM

    Interesting. The umpire clearly blew the call, but it happens. I'd like to see ANYONE be 100% accurate all of the time (at this level). Anyway, there is not much that can be done to decide this equitably once the umpire makes his or her call, so that's life. I'd hate to see challenges extended to balls and strikes.

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  8. LindsayJune 3, 2013 at 8:36 AM

    And Bill Welke....Not one of MLB's better umpires.

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  9. LindsayJune 3, 2013 at 12:32 PM

    I love how the announcer refers to Bill Welke as "that guy." Real Professional lol.

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  10. LindsayJune 6, 2013 at 6:13 PM

    Those pitch trackers are faulty for a major reason...they show the strike zone as a 2 dimensional plane when the strike zone is actually 3 dimensional. A strike has to go through the majority of that 3-D zone to be a strike. The way I learned from Vic Voltaggio is that the pitch is a strike if it comes in after the front of the zone (which would register as a ball on the pitch tracker) and hits most of zone. Or if it clips the front of the zone but does not pass through most of it it would be a ball (which would register as a strike on the pitch tracker).

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