In the first inning of Game Two, Aaron Hill hit a rocket down the left-field line off Zack Greinke. It bounced off the top of the wall and caromed right to Ryan Braun, who fired the ball back into the infield. Left-field umpire James Hoye called it a foul ball, and Hill had to settle for a single later in the at-bat.
Greinke Sails Through First With Help From Blown Call
Replays showed that the ball was clearly fair. It wasn’t off the foul line -- it actually hit off the wall a few inches before the foul line started. It wasn’t even close.
That’s bad enough, but, hey, blown calls happen, right? Read who called it foul, though: the left-field umpire. There are two extra umps for the postseason, and their entire raison d’être is to help out with fair and foul calls. Hoye was closer to the ball than a third-base ump normally would be in a regular-season game, he crouched down with his hands on his knees, stared down the line ... and completely blew a call that was right in front of him.
There is an explanation, though, and it isn’t nearsightedness or peyote. There were some nasty shadows down the left-field line. It was pretty telling that third-base coach Matt Williams didn’t argue at all. The ball almost certainly disappeared from the view of anyone looking down the line into the shadows.
It didn’t matter after all, as Greinke got Justin Upton to pop up, and he struck out Miguel Montero with a curveball that bounced a few feet in front of the mound. Still, it’s always disconcerting to watch a left-field umpire blow a call like that.
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