Schwarber’s complaint backed up by MLB’S own strike-zone data

Baseball’s strike zone remains subject to human interpretation, which means spit-flying arguments at home plate are still a part of the game. Sunday night made that very clear.

Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber lost his temper on home plate umpire Angel Hernandez after a questionable strike three call in the ninth inning of Philadelphia’s 1-0 loss to Milwaukee. Schwarber took a 3-2 sinker from Brewers closer Josh Hader that appeared to be located beyond the outside corner of the strike zone, but Hernandez signaled it as the third strike, leaving the Phillies down to their final out.

Schwarber — who was ejected after slamming his bat and throwing his helmet — had a right to be upset. According to baseball’s own pitch data, pitches in that location are called balls 59% of the time.

“Everyone kind of saw what was going on,” Schwarber said after the game. “I’m not here to bury anyone, but it wasn’t very good.”

By the end of the night, Hernandez called just 209 out of 245 pitches correctly, per baseball’s data, the fifth-worst correct-call rate of the season.

Umpires tend to get far more ball-strike calls right than wrong, but this was a particularly poor showing from Hernandez. It was the eighth-worst called game since the start of 2021, according to pitch location data.

It also wasn’t a complete aberration. Over the past five full seasons plus the start of 2022, Hernandez’s correct call rate ranks 54th out of 68 umpires who called at least 100 games over that span. He’s called 122 more strikes than you would expect based on the location of pitches.