MLB Umpire Blames Blown Call on Outfield Scoreboard

Another umpire passing the buck, and this Ump has a history of making bad calls. Umpire Angel Hernandez said that he was forced to guess if a fly ball was caught Tuesday night because of the outfield scoreboard on the wall at Kauffman Stadium. And of course he guessed wrong. KC catcher Salvador Perez hit a fly ball to right-center field between CF Harold Ramirez and RF Josh Naylor. Ramirez went to catch the ball and it bounced off the tip of his glove and landed on the warning track.

Hernandez thought the ball had been caught at the warning track and signaled that Perez’s fly ball was an out.

The Angel Hernandez alarm has been rung pic.twitter.com/uzh7OkXdyN

— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) May 5, 2021

Following the game Hernandez explained himself:

“Our goal was to get the play right and that’s exactly what we did,” Hernandez told the Athletic after the game. “We did talk about this. Replay is an extension of what we do out there. As you saw, I got basically blinded by the outfield scoreboard. The pixels on the lights were as clear as white can be. I was trying to make out what happened out there. The harder I looked, the less I could see. So I was trying to read the players to see what they did with the ball. And I had to come out with the call. I basically guessed on the wrong call. So as soon as I turned around, [home plate umpire Edwin Moscoso] started walking towards me. We got the crew together. And we fixed the problem.”

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Umpires guessing on calls?

Angel Hernandez on his way in to work everyday: pic.twitter.com/i7pLqhVn68

— Joey (@joeytweetsports) May 5, 2021

Yep, that’s why he should have consulted with the other umps on the field.

The Angel Hernandez umpiring crew pic.twitter.com/LiCP2fNEY4

— McNeil (@Reflog_18) May 5, 2021

Thankfully for Cleveland, Hernandez’s guess didn’t lead to any Royals runs.

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