ST. LOUIS (AP) 鈥� Rob Refsnyder’s challenge that was one of eight successful challenges by the Seattle Mariners and St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday.
Refsnyder lifted the Mariners to a 3-2 win in the game that featured nine challenges of plate umpire John Bacon’s calls. Refsnyder had his third strike overturned in the ninth inning by before hitting JoJo Romero’s pitch 412 feet into the left-field bullpen.
鈥淚t鈥檚 tough when you鈥檙e not playing every day. Sometimes you lose sight of the strike zone,鈥� said Refsnyder, who was making his first ABS challenge. 鈥淏ut that felt really outside. Thankful for the challenge system.鈥�
Bacon had seven calls overturned in his two previous games behind home plate.
Cardinals catcher Iv谩n Herrera, who successfully had four balls overturned into strikes for his pitchers in the game, said Romero鈥檚 pitch was outside of the zone.
鈥淯mpires are humans,” Herrera said. “We鈥檙e all going to make mistakes. Sometimes I don鈥檛 even know whether it鈥檚 a ball or a strike. It was just a pitch that was out of the zone.鈥�
JJ Wetherholt had the game鈥檚 first unsuccessful challenge attempting to overturn a strike call in the ninth before he fouled out to end the game.
鈥淭oday, it worked in our favor. Tomorrow, it might not,鈥� Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to say, but this is becoming a part of baseball. It is a part of baseball. So, I think, using it in a way that can help you out as much as possible is what our guys are going to try to do.鈥�
Umpire C.B. Bucknor was when he had six calls overturned by the ball-strike system in a Boston-Cincinnati game, including back-to-back strikes turned into balls during a Eugenio Su谩rez at-bat.
鈥淚t’s the first year I鈥檝e ever done it,” Refsnyder said. 鈥淪o, it鈥檚 not super natural to kind of question the umpire like that.鈥�
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