The Chicago Cubs batted around and jumped out to a 4-0 lead on the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first inning as Kenta Maeda labored to the tune of 37 pitches. He went to four three-ball counts in the opening frame and issued three walks (one intentional).
While Maeda didn’t have full command of his pitches, home plate umpire Ted Barrett’s strike zone did not do him any favors. Furthermore, one of Maeda’s walks came on a borderline pitch that appeared to catch the inside corner.
Instead, the ball four put Javier Baez aboard to load the bases with one out. Maeda struck out Kyle Schwarber but allowed a bases-clearing double to Willson Contreras. Daniel Descalso followed with an RBI double and Anthony Rizzo hit a two-run homer in the second inning.
In addition to Maeda not getting calls to go his way, the Dodgers were the victim of it when at the plate themselves. It prompted manager Dave Roberts to voice some frustration with Barrett, via Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group:
“Tonight was a funky one, I think both ways,” Roberts said of the strike zone. “The umpires do the best they can but I think tonight, for me, there were some inconsistencies there. So when you’re trying to calibrate a zone and you can’t really bank on the consistency it makes it tough – for the pitchers and the hitters as well.”
As the Dodgers were threatening in the seventh inning, Max Muncy had his pinch-hit at-bat end on a called strike three. He clearly didn’t agree with the call at the time though stopped short of criticizing Barrett after the loss:
“I’m not going to comment on him calling it a strike or a ball,” Muncy said. “The only thing I will comment on is he felt the need to justify his call immediately without me saying anything towards him. All I did was put my hands on my head and turn around. He felt he needed to justify his call and I didn’t want to hear.”
As Muncy noted, he turned back to look toward home plate which was when Barrett took off his mask and emphatically defended his call. Beyond the fact that the pitch from Jose Quintana appeared to be off the plate, it was in a similar location of a called ball earlier in the at-bat.
The following inning, it was A.J. Pollock who had a call go against him and arguably change the complexion of his at-bat that also ended in a strikeout with the bases loaded. Ultimately, the Dodgers did not suffer a 7-2 loss because of two pitches, but Barrett’s wide and unpredictable zone didn’t aid their effort.
