I was bouncing back and forth between the baseball and football games on Sunday, so I didn’t realize Jerry Meals was the home plate umpire for Game 2 of the Cards-Phillies series.
Meals was the umpire who committed the most egregious blown call in the history of Major League Baseball during the marathon 19-inning game between Atlanta and Pittsburgh on July 26.
Meals called the Braves’ Julio Lugo safe at home for the winning run when he was clearly out. And Lugo wasn’t out by a step, he was out by five feet.
It was perhaps the easiest call Meals will have to make in his umpiring career, but he blew it and blew it huge.
The day after Meals blew the call, MLB issued a statement conceding his error, despite Meals’ attempt to justify it.
For that reason alone, you’d think MLB would have left Meals off the list of umpires working the playoffs, but there he was on Sunday standing behind home plate.
It didn’t take long for Meals to be at the center of controversy again.
Cardinals’ manager Tony La Russa questioned his strike zone, beginning in the second inning when he made a visit to the mound and then took his critique of Meals public during an in-game interview.
Although Meals didn’t hear La Russa’s broadcast remarks, it clearly had an effect.
Philadelphia starter Cliff Lee found the strike zone less favorable beginning in the fourth inning. That’s when St. Louis scored three runs to cut the Phillies’ lead to 4-3.
Following the fourth inning the Phillies went after Meals, hollering at him from the dugout for squeezing Lee.
Baseball has always had a loosely defined strike zone that is subject to change depending on the umpire working home plate.
In many cases it can literally change from inning to inning, as was the case in Game 2 of the Cardinals-Phillies series.
Meals isn’t the first umpire that took heat for his interpretation of the strike zone. But considering his performance during the regular season, MLB should have left him off the umpiring crews working the playoffs.
After Jim Joyce blew a call last season that cost Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game, MLB was wise not to include him among the crews working the 2010 playoffs.
It may prove to be another in a long list of bad decisions made by MLB. For everyone’s sake, let’s hope Meals isn’t working home plate during a tie game that’s gone into extra innings.
