Cliff Lee gets "Gerry Davis'd" for 6 BB

by eclou on May 17, 2011 11:06 AM CDT

"I felt like I threw a lot of strikes that were called balls, but whatever," Lee said. "It is what it is. I'm the pitcher. He's the umpire. It's [home-plate umpire Gerry Davis'] job to call balls and strikes, and he felt like they were balls, I guess. It is what it is.

"It's my job to throw strikes and force the other team to swing the bat. They made me throw a lot of pitches and drew a lot of walks. I'm typically not a guy that walks a lot of guys, but for whatever reason today that happened."

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I'm seeing nine, possibly 10 strikes called balls

Eight, possibly nine balls called strikes. Thing is, some of those calls are really, really far off, like one strike nearly six inches from the left edge and definitely six inches from the top called a ball, and one more than six inches high called a strike. The inconsistency is what would irk me the most.

by Inkara1 on May 17, 2011 11:27 AM CDT up reply actions

Yeah I agree

I do think it evened out most likely though.

by Dirk Diggler on May 17, 2011 11:28 AM CDT up reply actions

I see 4 clear cut misses on both sides

And on borderline misses the ump was very generous to Cliff IMO

The ones within a tenth of a foot of the lines are coin flips anyway given the margin of error even for a computer

by bigsteve on May 17, 2011 2:25 PM CDT up reply actions

Missed a 5th missed call up in the upper right corner behind a red dot

by bigsteve on May 17, 2011 2:26 PM CDT up reply actions

some of those really aren't even borderline

weird.

by SteveP on May 17, 2011 11:46 AM CDT up reply actions

Like this much better...

by coolaid on May 17, 2011 3:18 PM CDT up reply actions

This makes it look a lot worse.

I count nine balls that clearly should’ve been strikes, and only one possible called strike that could’ve been a ball.

by jwiscarson on May 19, 2011 10:52 AM CDT up reply actions

That's not even a normalized chart.

by AsDevilsRun on May 17, 2011 10:22 PM CDT up reply actions

those might have been swing and misses.

by JShoe on May 19, 2011 2:08 PM CDT up reply actions

well, I hadn't gotten that far down yet. Sorry.

by JShoe on May 19, 2011 2:08 PM CDT up reply actions

whew, we dodged a bullet with that one..

"Sometimes you just want to sit back and watch somebody throw 100." - Jeff Passan on Neftali Feliz

"Baseball's all that's real" - JB

by Ryin A on May 17, 2011 11:28 AM CDT reply actions

Gerry Davis really Rhadigan'd that strike zone

By 2028, Mark Teixeira will be in the HOF.

"I am one of the biggest Texas Ranger fans out there but I'm also one of the smartest. Deal with it."
-The Outlaw

by Gdawg on May 17, 2011 11:40 AM CDT reply actions 2 recs

I need to start using this phrase more

by MikeEl on May 17, 2011 1:47 PM CDT up reply actions

Looks like we may get an upset and determined Cliffton on Saturday. I'm scared.

by booyakasha on May 17, 2011 12:17 PM CDT reply actions

What's the normalized zone look like?

"I hope the image of my erect penis sears into your brain." by ab03 on Mar 24, 2011 9:13 PM CDT

by Brad on May 17, 2011 1:07 PM CDT reply actions

9 missed in the zone?

8 called out of the zone? Is this where Robbie screams for robots?

by bdavison94 on May 17, 2011 2:09 PM CDT reply actions

The chart wasn't as bad as I expected it to be

As I watched the game live, it looked like both Cliff and Westbrook were getting squeezed. Some of the Cliff pitches the ump called balls (that were really strikes) were on 1-0 on 2-1 pitches, which obviously changed the complexion of the rest of those plate appearances.

I’m not one to scream for robots. And I’m certainly glad the Cardinals got the win. But it seems like if Cliff Lee can’t figure out your strike zone, then you probably aren’t a very consistent umpire.

"Whenever I'm about to do something, I think 'Would an idiot do that?' And if they would, I do not do that thing."

by Hard8 on May 17, 2011 2:45 PM CDT reply actions

well

From the chart it appears the ump was pretty consistent on the lower left corner of the zone which is where the majority of the pitches were thrown.

There appears to be only 1 complete miss by the ump and several generous strikes.

Thats a area of the zone that Lee likes to work in. It doesn’t excuse the misses elsewhere but I think this is a case where Lee is probably mad about a lot of the balls that were called in that area that he thought he should get the benefit of the doubt.

by bigsteve on May 17, 2011 3:01 PM CDT up reply actions