Buster Olney makes a great point today: Andy Pettitte has been called for 11 balks in his career. Three of those were called by Angel Hernandez, who obviously doesn’t think that Pettitte’s awesome move to first is so awesome. Or maybe it’s too awesome. I don’t know. The point, though: Angel Hernandez is umping first base tonight.
It was a long time ago -- maybe 1997 or 1998 -- but I remember an ESPN game in which someone made a point to break down Pettitte’s move to first base. It’s pretty spectacular, and I’m not sure how Hernandez calls it as a balk more than others do. Maybe he just caught Pettitte on bad days. Maybe Hernandez just isn’t much of an ump.