After yesterday’s Phillies-Reds game, Reds’ shortstop Orlando Cabrera really stepped in it. His comments regarding Roy Halladay’s no-no:
Such sour grapes are unbecoming even if the strikezone was wonky, but they’re especially bad when they’re demonstrably false.
Click that link. The little red squares on that chart are Halladay pitches that were called strikes. I see five of them that were outside the zone, three of which were really close anyway. In contrast, Reds’ pitchers -- whose strikes are represented by the triangles -- got three bad calls in their favor, but two of them were really bad calls. No umpire is perfect, of course, but we see way, way worse charts than this one every single night of the season. I don’t know how anyone can look at it and conclude that Halladay was unduly benefiting from a friendly ump. He lived on the left and right, offering virtually nothing hittable, but nonetheless pounding the zone.
I don’t know if Orlando Cabrera reviews the pitch charts after the game, but I’m sure someone on the Reds does. That person should tip Cabrera off to it this morning and Cabrera, if he’s wise, should apologize for these comments and admit that they were borne of frustration.
The fact of the matter is that Roy Halladay didn’t need any help. And now the Reds need a lot of it.