REPLAY CAN’T COUNT BALLS AND STRIKES CORRECTLY. When I first posted about a major league baseball game in which everybody lost track of the pitch count, I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of occurrence. I posted here about several times when it had happened again and expressed my astonishment because the pitch count—whether the batter or the pitcher has the advantage—should affect the kind of pitch and location that the catcher chooses to call and the positioning of the defense.
This year, baseball has a new replay system. And this article by David Brown describes how the umpires and the replay officials could not keep track of the pitch count on Yunil Escoba. After he had four balls, he was not awarded a walk, and stayed at the plate to strike out. The replay officials confirmed the mistake. Brown says: “When it’s all said and done, this is going to be remembered as the worst moment in the history of umpiring in the video replay era.”