Astros fan give reality check to Yankees over poor umpiring complaints originally appeared on The Sporting News
The New York Yankees have been crying all season long about poor umpiring. Their latest issues re-emerged on Thursday when reliever Devin Williams and manager Aaron Boone took issue with home plate umpire Brian Walsh for his ball-strike calls.
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However, ahead of the series finale, one Houston Astros fan has come up with a startling statistic that shows the Yankees being on the favorable side more often than several other MLB teams.
“Yankees fans crying about the umpire like they’re not one of the most favored teams is crazy. Meanwhile, we’re sitting at 28th,” the post read.
The chart shared in the post breaks down how often teams benefited from umpire calls. It includes metrics such as:
- totFav / avgFav: Total and average favorable calls.
- totBI / avgBI: Bad calls in favor of a team.
- pctFav: The percentage of games where a team had a favorable umpire call balance.
According to the table, the Yankees had a 61% pctFav, ranking third just behind the San Francisco Giants and Seattle Mariners. Meanwhile, the Astros sat much lower, at 28th.
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Missed strike calls back up Yankees’ protests
While the above data may suggest that the Yankees seem to have benefited but at least in Wednesday’s 8-7 loss, the story was different. Data from MLB.com and Baseball Savant supported Devin Williams’ complaints.
According to the reports, several important pitches were ruled incorrectly. Brian Walsh missed four pivotal strikes, including two to Jesús Sánchez and one to Taylor Trammell. Both missed calls led to the Astros’ four-run rally in the eighth inning, resulting in Williams’ first career ejection and Aaron Boone’s departure, too.
