On Monday night in Flushing, Queens, $765 million (plus escalators) Mets superstar Juan Soto broke out of his slump in a massive way, stomping all over an inside pitch and sending the Phillies to an early grave with a three-run moonshot down the right field line and onto the Pepsi Porch. The Mets’ $765 million light show (we assume) went wild. The fans celebrated. Soto admired and gesticulated. Only one problem: the ball wasn’t gone.
Even after Soto rounded the bases, slapped hands, and the crowd went wild, their arms full of $22 Shake Shack burgers and $38 whiskey lemonades (all proceeds go to the Soto Fund), the umpires had to get together and reckon with the difficult reality that the ball passed to the right of the orange pole. It was so close. It was also clearly foul.
It must’ve been tough to tell both Soto and the raucous, rowdy crowd that three runs were about to be taken off the board, but somehow they managed. After all, it’s better to be plainly correct than to do fan service.
Anyway, just mentioning this for no reason. But … while we’re here … why couldn’t the umpires in Tampa, FL in front of 12,000 casual observers — many of them fans of the road team — treat a clear and obvious Aaron Judge home run with the same amount of care and reverence as a Soto foul fly?
— Just Baseball (@JustBB_Media) April 22, 2025
Umpires did a great job taking a home run away from Juan Soto on review. Why did they fail at giving Yankees’ Aaron Judge the home run he deserved?
It’s petty to count the numbers of Judge home runs that the universe owes the Yankees slugger due to poor umpiring but oh, what the hell, it’s two; the answer is two homers. One in 2017 where the umpires couldn’t discern where the wall ended, and one this past weekend, in the bright sun against the trees, where it was exceedingly easy to spot a small white pill cascading 15 feet fair.
The umpiring crew and the replay review booth got the tougher call completely correct on Monday night at Citi Field, and Soto lost a signature moment — but, hey, at least the correction was made. It would be tough to justify tainting history with an incorrect call. That was the justification for messin’ with Max Fried’s no-hitter, after all.
But Judge is someone who might be chasing home run records in any given season. You never know when he’ll be threatening 60, or cracking 500, or pushing the limits even further. Losing even one means that history has been handed an asterisk. And it’s fair to wish Sunday’s mammoth blast was treated with the care and accuracy of Soto’s dissolving moment.
