Joe Kelly allowed a home run last night. There’s no getting around that. After making it through the first 109 games* of the season without a long ball, our hero has yielded three in a span of five outings. The hitters who’ve hit them are no slouches: Brent Rooker and Kyle Schwarber are 8th and 10th in the majors in dingers this season, while William Contreras is the best hitting catcher in baseball. Similarly, three home runs in four innings would be merely one bad outing for a starting pitcher. Basically, this isn’t a big deal, and the people making it a big deal are weirdos. (Unlike you and I, who are respectively writing and reading a Joe Kelly fan site.)
That said…last night’s hurt. It stopped a Joe Kelly good outing streak before it started. It made me personally angry. It allowed the Brewers a glimmer of hope. Did it set up an inspiring display of grit and heart as Joe Kelly navigated two ridiculous singles to get out of the inning with the lead, ultimately powering the Dodgers to their first four-game win streak in a month? Yes. But it hurt. Especially because the home run came on the fifth strike Joe Kelly threw William Contreras.
I’m not going to share the gamecast screenshot** here, nor am I going to relay the clips from the Dodgers’ broadcast. Missed calls are part of the game, and if William Contreras gets five strikes per at-bat, William Contreras gets five strikes per at-bat. I’m not asking umpires to get the calls right. That would be cool, but I can’t imagine how hard it is to call balls and strikes on 100-mph fastballs with movement. No, I’m not asking for justice here. All I’m asking is that MLB broadcasts make missed calls hurt a little less.
Baseball media seems to be heading this direction. I’ve noticed FOX at least toning down the strike zone lately on their Saturday broadcasts.*** On-screen strike zones are a distraction. They take away from the joy of the game. We watch baseball to watch baseball. We don’t watch to see if different umpires can call every ball and strike correctly.
Worse, on-screen zones change the experience of missed calls. You know what would have happened this morning if there hadn’t been a strike zone on the Dodgers broadcast? I would have woken up, taken a long piss, sniffed my shorts to see if the overnight farts required a change of clothes, then gone downstairs to check eight different sources in excruciating detail as I tried to find out whether Joe Kelly got screwed. I would have been so mad! I would have looked up the umpire’s name and said it aloud to myself! Instead, I knew in the moment that the calls had been missed, but my annoyance at knowing that made it too hard to be properly angry.
Let me obsessively grade umpires. Let me aggressively debate the contours of the strike zone, looking for three-dimensional visualizations online. Let me be a Joe Kelly fan. Don’t try to do it for me.
*Shut up about the IL stint.
**A Brewers fan texted me last night attempting to cast doubt on the accuracy of broadcast strike zones, citing the inconsistency of what’s high and what’s low based on a batter’s stance. Fair enough. But: “Ball 3” was belt-high, and it hit the corner. There’s no definition of the strike zone which does not label that pitch a strike. Again, missed calls are part of Major League Baseball. This isn’t an excuse. But it was a missed call, and adults can call it that.
***This has come alongside their similarly welcome removal of the pitch clock from the score bug. The pitch clock? Great. A countdown in front of your eyes whenever you watch baseball? Not fun.
