AZ @ KC
Home plate: Ryan Wills
“The zone shrank when the pitchers needed it most.”
What this shows — how Ryan Wills called the 185 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. 172 were right. Below, only the misses are plotted, alongside every challenged pitch.
The zone, as he called it
The calls that moved the game
- 1-0.39▲10 · 2-2 ball called strike· challenged ✓
Nolan Arenado vs Steven Cruz - 2-0.21▼8 · 3-0 ball called strike
Salvador Perez vs Jonathan Loáisiga - 3+0.21▼10 · 3-0 strike called ball
Michael Massey vs Blake Walston
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
2 pitches went to the robots · 1 overturned (ump overruled) · 1 upheld (ump confirmed). This is the ABS system’s own measurement — Hawk-Eye optical ball-tracking, not our model.
- 1Carter Jensen — ump said ball, robot ruled ball: upheld.
- 2Nolan Arenado — ump said strike, robot ruled ball: overturned.
Our tracked-rulebook zone matched the ABS ruling on 2 of 2 — a zone-definition gap (ABS grades a standardized, height-based zone). Where the two disagree, the umpire is graded on the ABS ruling.