MLB’s opening day is still nearly four weeks away, but notoriously terrible umpire Ángel Hernández is already in mid-season form, making obvious errors left and right.
While acting as home plate umpire for Friday’s spring training game between the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals, Hernandez called an obvious strike a ball.
The pitch, a 2-2 sinker, landed squarely in the strike zone, as a picture Mets blogger Mike Mayer posted to Twitter clearly shows.
Ángel Hernández called 5 a ball pic.twitter.com/qLhACoHlAL
— Mike Mayer (@mikemayer22) March 1, 2024
But Hernández called it a ball, according to Mayer, because of course he did. Hernández has a long and ignominious record of delivering wildly questionable calls.
Fck it here’s Angel Hernandez highlights pic.twitter.com/xlDqRo94bM
— Brian (Jalen Brunson supporter) (@MetsfanBrian) February 27, 2024
It actually baffles me that this guy is still employed. He’s so atrocious that even professional broadcasters struggle to stay professional while watching him grapple with the basic functions of sight and perception.
“You cannot miss this bad,” Washington Nationals play-by-play announcer Bob Carpenter said during an Aug. 2023 game.
In Umpire Angel Hernandez’s first game behind the plate since an April injury, he struggled to find the bottom of the zone.
The Nationals announcers were VERY vocal about what they thought of Angel.
Especially after a missed ball led to a hitter’s count and a HR. pic.twitter.com/IVCLgOmT28
— Umpire Auditor (@UmpireAuditor) August 3, 2023
“A horrendous call by Ángel Hernández, yet again,” Carpenter’s broadcast partner added. (RELATED: MLB Team Ends $1 Hot Dog Nights Because Fans Simply Cannot Act Civilized)
When Hernández returned from a back injury in 2023 he still managed to make a whopping 161 bad calls in a 10-game span and finished the year as the MLB’s worst rated umpire, according to Twitter’s Umpire Auditor.
Angel Hernandez finished the regular season as the lowest rated umpire (min 10 games).
He didn’t get his start until August due to a back injury, but he racked up 161 bad calls in 10 games, including the lowest rated game.
His season may be over, but may our memories live on. pic.twitter.com/or3hweE1yL
— Umpire Auditor (@UmpireAuditor) October 2, 2023
If he’s this measurably bad, and everybody and their mama knows it, how can the MLB continue to employ him?
I’m not a person that wants to see robot umpires or electronic strike zones. I think part of learning an umpire’s strike zone and the idiosyncrasies that vary from one ump to another are part of what makes baseball so charming and fun. But Angel is not making it easy for me to continue holding that belief. The dude has to go. He simply has to. He cannot be allowed to carry on being this demonstrably bad at his job with no consequences.