Phillies broadcast questions MLB over umpire’s brutal strike zone

After watching the Philadelphia Phillies get victimized by a bad strike zone, broadcasters Tom McCarthy and John Kruk called the umpire out.

In the fifth inning of their game against the Miami Marlins Tuesday night, Phillies outfielder Johan Rojas took a pitch that was clearly a ball, but home plate umpire Brennan Miller called it a strike. And it wasn’t the first time the Phillies suffered from Miller’s strike zone, prompting McCarthy to wonder if something was wrong on Major League Baseball’s side.

“Unless there’s something digitally wrong with the box from Major League Baseball…And I don’t think that’s the case.” pic.twitter.com/FTFBRsUrqn

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 14, 2024

“It’s a strike all night,” McCarthy said as Kruk let out an audible groan. “It’s not a strike, but it’s a strike all night. Unless there’s something digitally wrong with the box from Major League Baseball. And I don’t think that’s the case.”

McCarthy was grasping at straws there, knowing there was nothing digitally wrong with the strike zone box on the broadcast, but also struggling to fathom how Miller could have called that pitch a strike.

“Well, I’m sure if there’s a little bug in there, that Major League Baseball would be right on top of it to fix it,” Kruk added sarcastically of the strike zone box. “As long as they do it within the pitch clock.”

Baseball fans unanimously celebrated when the infamous Ángel Hernández announced his retirement as an MLB umpire earlier this year. But as New York Mets play-by-play voice Gary Cohen noted, Hernández was just one of “a lot of not very good umpires.” And in Hernández’s absence, those other not very good umpires appear to be getting their due.

[NBC Sports Philadelphia]