Baseball players and fans alike expressed outrage on Sunday after a called strike three ended the instant classic Team USA vs. Dominican Republic World Baseball Classic semifinal game.
With the tying run on third base, home plate umpire Cory Blaser appeared to miss the call on a pitch from USA closer Mason Miller of the San Diego Padres to Dominican Republic hitter Geraldo Perdomo — ending the game and sending Team USA to its third WBC final in six tournaments.
The PITCHf/x ball-tracking system used by Major League Baseball showed that the final pitch to Perdomo — pitch No. 8 in the at-bat — crossed the plate inches below the bottom of the strike zone, in a real-time graphic that can be seen via the MLB.com Gameday site.
Almost immediately after the blown call ended the game and eliminated the heavy-hitting Dominican Republic squad, disappointed and often outraged reactions poured in from across the baseball world.
Dominican Players, Hall of Famer React to Missed Strike Call
Perhaps the first to publicly express his reaction was Perdomo himself — the team’s No. 9 hitter and a shortstop for the Arizona Diamondbacks — who told ESPN in a postgame interview, “I knew 100 percent it was a ball. I knew it.”
His Dominican Republic teammate Juan Soto of the New York Mets was also on the receiving end of a similar missed call from Blaser in the eighth inning, when a 1-2 slider from USA reliever Garrett Whitlock of the Boston Red Sox missed the bottom of the strike zone by a clearly visible margin, as shown in the PITCHf/x graphic.
“We showed the world who’s the best team in baseball,” Soto told ESPN after the game. “That’s all I got to say.”
Retired Hall of Fame shortstop and New York Yankees five-time World Series winner Derek Jeter also lamented the final call of the game.
“You can pretty much guarantee they’re going to have the challenge system in place for the next WBC,” Jeter said on the FS1 postgame show. “You hate to end a game that way.”
Fans Express Outrage at Umpire’s Call
ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan also expressed somewhat uncharacteristic outrage at the missed call on Perdomo.
“That game cannot end like that. A shame,” Passan wrote on his social media account.
The ESPN writer earlier criticized the missed call on Soto, writing, “That is a bad strike three call on Juan Soto in the eighth inning. Shouldn’t happen period. Absolutely cannot happen in a game like this.”
The “challenge system” mentioned by Jeter is the Automated Ball-Strike System, or ABS, that will be used in the regular season by MLB for the first time this year. The ABS system allows pitchers, batters and catchers to challenge ball-strike calls a limited number of times per game.
Fans online were, not surprisingly, more emotional than the baseball professionals when it came to the blown call.
“Umpire had money on that game ain’t no way,” wrote one fan. It should be added that there is no evidence that Blaser had any interest in the game other than to do his job as an umpire.
“Umpires calling pitches is outdated, the game has passed the human eye by,” wrote another fan, as quoted by The Daily Mail newspaper.
“The greatest game was completely ruined by that home plate umpire,” wrote another fan, appearing to sum up the feelings of many more online.
For reasons that remain unclear, the WBC chose not to adopt the ABS system for the 2026 tournament.
Baseball World Outrage at Blown WBC Strike Call —‘Hate to End a Game That Way’