It took all of two pitches for home plate umpire CB Bucknor to set an ugly tone for himself on Wednesday night when the Dodgers were trying to prevent a series sweep at the hands of the Angels. With Shohei Ohtani batting and ahead in the count 2-0, Bucknor called a changeup inches below the zone as a strike, and then immediately called a sinker in — again, not remotely hittable — strike two. Ohtani had to call a timeout to process that one.
He eventually hit a leadoff triple so, fine, but Bucknor continued to miss three more calls in the top of the first, including one that struck out Alex Freeland with two men on.
The Dodgers weren’t the only ones hurt by it — Ohtani’s first pitch to Zach Neto was outside, but called a strike, and Neto eventually struck out on a foul tip — but they were impacted more. Empirically.
By Umpire Scorecards’ estimation, Bucknor favored the Angels by a 1.02-run margin which, in what eventually turned into a 6-5 victory for Anaheim, clearly made a lot of difference.
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Home plate umpire CB Bucknor might have literally handed over Angels’ win over Dodgers on Wednesday night
The Dodgers got out to a 5-2 lead by the end of the fourth, but the Angels came back to score four by the bottom of the eighth. Ohtani gave up four runs in his ninth start of the year, and Justin Wrobleski put two men on via walks in eighth, both of whom scored after he was replaced by Edgardo Henriquez, who blew his first save in as many opportunities of the season.
The Angels walked away with a sweep, and the Dodgers walked away having ceded their tie with the Padres for first place in the NL West. San Diego now leads by a game after their 11-1 win over the Giants that night.
Unsurprisingly, the most consequential missed call of the game ended up being the called strikeout on Freeland with a runner on first and second in the top of the first. There were plenty of reasons to blame the Dodgers for that loss, too — Teoscar Hernández pulled a Michael Conforto and struck out swinging with the bases loaded, affected by zero bum calls from Bucknor in the process — but Bucknor did the opposite of help.
On Friday, the Dodgers will host the now-first place Padres at Dodger Stadium for a three-game series. Heaven knows whoever’s calling those games can’t follow Bucknor’s lead.
