According to John Kruk, it’s not the Major League Baseball catchers who are good at pitch framing, it’s the umpires who are bad at their jobs.
The art of a catcher receiving a pitch in a way that sort of leads an umpire to call a strike has been measured for years. St. Louis Cardinals catcher Wilson Contreras recently proved pitch framing comes with a risk, when he suffered a broken forearm after being hit by the swing of New York Mets DH J.D. Martinez. Contreras likely suffered the injury because he set up closer to the plate with many teams believing it increases their chances of stealing a strike.
Monday night, the Milwaukee Brewers appeared to steal a strike against the Phillies when Wilson Contreras’ brother William Contreras framed a pitch against Philly shortstop Edmundo Sosa.
John Kruk did not like this call… pic.twitter.com/FKxgI7ZT8O
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 4, 2024
“Sosa takes a strike,” Phillies play-by-play voice Tom McCarthy said.
“No, he didn’t,” Kruk quickly responded with disgust. “He took a ball that was called a strike. What the heck is going on? I get the pitch framing and all that. But isn’t [the umpire] supposed to call it when it goes across home plate before it hits the catcher’s glove? That’s what I don’t understand about this whole framing thing. Then you read on a day, ‘Look how many pitches this catcher steals.’ No, he’s not stealing them. The umpire is dang missing them!”
The pitch in question certainly looked like a ball. And if we’re treating the NBC Sports Philadelphia strike zone box as gospel, then yes, it was definitely a ball. Regardless of whether the umpire missed the call or was duped by Contreras framing the pitch, Kruk wasn’t happy.
To make matters worse, MLB fans no longer have Ángel Hernández to blame. But Kruk’s rant effectively proved what Gary Cohen recently said about Hernández to be true. “There are a lot of not very good umpires. He was just one of them.”
