If it walks like a balk, looks like a balk, and sure as hell moves like a balk, then it’s probably a balk.
Unless you’re Matthew Boyd.
The Cubs’ lefty has somehow tiptoed past every balk call this season, despite a pickoff move that feels more like sleight of hand than legal footwork. The 34-year-old All-Star added fuel to the fire on Saturday, tossing seven shutout innings against the Orioles, lowering his ERA to 2.34, and nabbing his league-leading eighth pickoff of the year.
Boyd’s pickoff move has been drawing side-eye from broadcast booths all season. And it’s not that he was playing it safe, either. In the first inning, with Gunnar Henderson on base, he danced right up to the line — maybe over it —and got away with it.
That saw Orioles announcers Kevin Brown and Ben McDonald become the latest announcing duo to question whether what Boyd was doing was legal.
“You could make the case where he stepped, that’s a balk,” McDonald said. “He stepped a lot more towards home plate than he did toward first base.”
“Amazingly, he hasn’t been called for a balk all year,” Brown added. “I don’t know how he does this.”
“You could make the case where he stepped, that’s a balk. He stepped a lot more towards home plate than he did toward first base.”
“Amazingly, he hasn’t been called for a balk all year.”
The Orioles booth had some questions about Cubs pitcher Matthew Boyd’s pickoff move. #MLB pic.twitter.com/JMkERGwHsS
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 2, 2025
Later, he picked off Jordan Westburg.
Matthew Boyd’s 8 pickoffs this season leads MLB 🔥 pic.twitter.com/vX9pvlW4VU
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) August 2, 2025
By rule, a balk occurs when “the pitcher, while touching his plate, fails to step directly toward a base before throwing to that base.”
Boyd’s pickoff move clearly tests that rule, and it’s not just Baltimore’s booth seeing red. Back in May, during a Mets-Cubs game on Roku’s MLB Sunday Leadoff, Mets play-by-play man Gary Cohen was in a similar boat. To him, Boyd was balking every single time he threw to first. The umpires didn’t see it then, and they didn’t see it Saturday either. They haven’t seen it all season.
Really cool that MLB umpires allow Matthew Boyd to balk on every throw over to first. Very cool, even.
— Sam Neumann (@Sam_Neumann_) May 11, 2025
Maybe it’s not a balk. Maybe it just looks like one. Or maybe MLB’s much-maligned umpires have no clue what a balk is anymore and would rather ignore the gray area than make a tough call. Either way, if it’s never going to be called, then it doesn’t matter what the rule says. At some point, the rest of the league has to stop complaining and start adjusting.
Boyd has gotten this far, perhaps, by knowing exactly how far he can push the rules before the umpires step in.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.