MLB

Red Sox’ Cody Ross Strikes Out On Series Of Terrible Calls, Has Well-Earned Freakout

You’ll have to forgive Cody Ross for his little tantrum after striking out to end the Red Sox’ 1-0 loss to the Rays today and probably dooming the team to at least another day of “Bobby Valentine and Kevin Youkilis are having problems!!!” stories. Ross went down looking on a 2-2 pitch. He did not believe it was a strike. He demonstrated this non-belief in the call by violently slamming his helmet to the ground:

“Typical,” you might think. “No one ever thinks a call that goes against them is any good.” But this was something different. As far as umpiring-related freakouts go, this was about as well-deserved as any you could imagine. Here’s the location of that last pitch, via SB Nation:

Looks to us like it’s directly over the edge of the opposite batter’s box. Needless to say: not a strike. “Okay, fine, maybe Ross did have a case,” you think. Well, there’s more. From @Detroit4Lyfe (via Hardball Talk), a look at the rest of the pitches of the at-bat:

So Ross actually struck out on an at-bat where it looks like not one strike was thrown, and only one that was even borderline. Eric Gregg jokes were made. Calls for robot umpires were made – all of them justified. You figure it has to be only a matter of time until far more calls than just home runs are reviewable – every sport’s moving in that direction, and at bats like this are why it’s inevitable.

Some pointed out the umpire’s strike zone was consistent, but consistent crap is still crap. So for now, whether you’re Cody Ross or just an angry Red Sox fan, we couldn’t blame you for being mad enough to, well, do this: