Don’t go questioning Laz Diaz on back-to-back pitches.
The polarizing umpire lorded over Royals catcher Salvador Perez after he correctly challenged consecutive pitches Monday night.
Diaz’s mask shielded whether the veteran official was having fun with Perez or trying to send a message after the veteran did not question a ball call to end the streak, and Perez’s face mask also made it difficult to gauge whether the two had a laugh during the Royals’ 3-1 home loss to the Red Sox.
Perez initiated the sequence when he challenged a first-pitch offering to Connor Wong in the fifth inning of a scoreless game that Diaz ruled a ball before the Automated Balls & Strikes system (ABS) overruled it.
The ABS system showed that the very bottom of the ball clipped the zone.
Starter Seth Lugo then fired an 0-1 curveball that Diaz again ruled a ball, yet Perez challenged.
Diaz even made note of it during his announcement.
“Catcher’s challenging the ball call again,” Diaz said, with the Royals announcers noting how Diaz threw in “again” to emphasize his point.
The crowd cheered when Perez won, this time with the pitch much more in the zone, with Perez seemingly enjoying his 2-for-2 showing.
“I wonder if Salvy knew he would have as much fun with this,” one of the Royals announcers said.
Perez did not question the next pitch, a 2-0 fastball above the zone, with Diaz making it known that he noticed what had just transpired.
Lugo ultimately retired Wong on the next pitch, although the Red Sox finally broke through for a pair of runs in the sixth inning to grab a 2-0 lead they never relinquished.
“It’s huge,” Lugo said of the challenges, according to the Kansas City Star.
“It gives me more confidence that not only pitches work where I want to, and instead of 2-0 it was 0-2, so that changes the whole at-bat. It’s nice having him back there.”
The ABS system has been well-received, but it does create awkward moments where an umpire may have to see multiple calls questioned in a short period.
It’s one thing when there’s a pitch that lands in the zone by less than inch, while there are times where one can wonder just how the umpire missed the call.
That Diaz is involved is notable since fans are not the highest on the longtime umpire, and umpscorecards.com rates him in the lower half of umpires in recent years.
