TOR @ KC
Home plate: Dan Merzel
“The zone leaned, and the ledger noticed.”
What this shows — how Dan Merzel called the 162 pitches that were taken (no swing), graded against the tracked rulebook strike zone, or, on a pitch the ABS (Automated Ball-Strike System) reviewed on a challenge, against its ruling. 146 were right. Below, only the misses are plotted, alongside every challenged pitch.
The zone, as he called it
* Graded on the ABS ruling. ABS measures its own zone, set by the batter’s height and taken at the middle of the plate, and our tracking puts this pitch on the other side of the line.
The calls that moved the game
- 1-0.69▲8 · 3-2 ball called strike
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. vs Connor Thomas - 2-0.39▲8 · 2-2 ball called strike· challenged ✓
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. vs Connor Thomas - 3-0.21▼7 · 3-0 ball called strike
Luke Maile vs Ricky Tiedemann
Run impact from the count run-value table: a missed strike three is worth far more than one on 3-0.
ABS — the Automated Ball-Strike System
6 pitches went to the robots · 4 overturned (ump overruled) · 2 upheld (ump confirmed). This is the ABS system’s own measurement — Hawk-Eye optical ball-tracking, not our model.
- 1Myles Straw — ump said strike, robot ruled ball: overturned.
- 2Nick Loftin — ump said strike, robot ruled strike: upheld.
- 3Brandon Valenzuela — ump said ball, robot ruled ball: upheld.
- 4Brandon Valenzuela — ump said strike, robot ruled ball: overturned.
- 5Luke Maile — ump said ball, robot ruled strike: overturned.
- 6Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — ump said strike, robot ruled ball: overturned.
Our tracked-rulebook zone matched the ABS ruling on 5 of 6 — a zone-definition gap (ABS grades a standardized, height-based zone). Where the two disagree, the umpire is graded on the ABS ruling.