How Bad Umpiring and Mental Mistakes Cost the Blue Jays

There are some games in a 162 games season that stick out more than others. Tuesday night’s game featuring the Jays and Yankees is a perfect example of one of these games. This might surprise you given the multitude of late-game losses suffered in the early goings, of the 2016 season, but yesterday sticks out.

One run losses can be downright excruciating for players and fans alike, but it’s the mistakes often shine much brighter in these types of games. Tonight was no different. If you were to browse the box score of this game and take a look at the second inning, you’ll see two walks, a throwing error, a run, and that’s about it. However, there was much more to this inning than a failed pickoff at second base.

One of the more obvious narratives around this game was the inconsistent strike zone of home plate umpire, James Hoye. All night his calls seems like they were pulled from a Magic Eight Ball, with both team’s players visibly upset. In the second inning, it helped spark a Yankees rally the eventually led to their first run of the game.

As mentioned above, Sanchez walked two batters in the inning. The first of these was the leadoff hitter, Brian McCann. Sanchez’ first pitch was a fastball high and away for ball one. Then he dropped this pitch.

Ball Two?!

I honestly have no idea how Hoye missed this pitch. It ended up right in front of him and he is staring right at it. Did he blink? Was there sand in his eye? We’ll never know, but instead of a 1-1 count, McCann found himself up 2-0. Sanchez was able to battle back to 2-2, but lost in the end by walking McCann.

After Sanchez induced a soft groundout from Calros Beltran, on which McCann moved up to second, Hoye once again left his impact on an plate appearance. Sanchez fell behind 3-1 to Headley, then threw this pitch:

This is a bit more defensible, as Sanchez really missed his spot, but once again the pitch ended up right in front of the home plate umpire. What probably should have been strike two was instead ball four.

This is where the confusion kicked in for most fans, and I would imagine the coaching staff as well. With runners now on first and second and one out, Starlin Castro stepped into the batters box. However, before even throwing a pitch, Sanchez whirled and fired to second in an attempt to pick off McCann. He threw the ball into center field instead, and the runners were each able to move up 90 feet.

Any little leaguer could tell you how silly this play was, yet it happened in a major league game. McCann is not a running threat. In an interview with John Lott, Sanchez admitted to being rattled by the missed strike calls, so perhaps temptation got the best of him in that situation. McCann was flat footed and far off second and Tulo came flying to the bag, so Sanchez reacted. It obviously didn’t work.

The reason this was so crazy is that Sanchez isn’t just a groundball pitcher. He is an extreme groundball pitcher. Over the last two seasons, there are only three qualified starters with a groundball rate of 60+ percent. Sanchez doesn’t qualify (doesn’t have enough innings), but his career groundball rate is 61.7 percent. And the hitter, Castro, has a career groundball to flyball rate of 1.62. So a groundball pitcher, a groundball hitter, and a double play is needed. That seems like a pretty good situation for the Blue Jays.

However, after the throwing error, the double play was removed. This is how the plate appearance ended:

Instead of an inning-ending double play to keep the score tied at 0-0, this ended up being an RBI groundout and the Blue Jays found themselves trailing. To Sanchez’s credit, he was able to minimize the damage and get out of the inning with another ground ball, but this was extremely disheartening.

Obviously there is more to a loss than a single inning. The Jays had three hits all game, and left seven men on base. Still, they lost by one run and the Yankees never should have scored the first one. It’s easier to handle a team simply blowing a game because they didn’t have it on that particular day. That is just the nature of sports. Some days you will be at your best, and some days you won’t. But mental mistakes and the umpires affecting the game behind the plate just leave a lingering, sour taste.

This is still only the second week of very long season, so there is all the time in the world to recover, but the umpires need to be better, and the Blue Jays need to be smarter.

Lead Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports