The Detroit Tigers are having a hard time with bad umpiring so far this season.It hasn't happened a lot,but two glaring mistakes have cost them a possible win and a perfect game.Everyone knows about the perfect game that wasn't.Umpire Jim Joyce made a bad call when Armando Galarraga clearly beat the Indians' Jason Donald to the bag at first. Joyce quickly realized he made the wrong call and everything turned out well as the Tigers fans and organization,as well as Galarraga showed a lot of class.
Which brings us to yesterday.As the Tigers rallied from a 4-1 defecit,literally walking down the Atlanta Braves,they were doomed by a bad call to end the game.With Johnny Damon at the plate and the bases loaded with two outs, Damon was called out on strikes on what appeared to be ball four,which would've tied the game at four. The ball was clearly outside,and how Damon didn't go nuts after the call was made is beyond me. Home plate umpire Gary Cederstrom admitted after the game that he made a bad call. He said that he was too quick on the call since he didn't realize the ball was going to break outside the strike zone. I'm not going to blame the umps for another Tigers loss.They didn't capitalize on their oppurtunities,which seems to be a common theme for this team year after year.I won't say they would've won the game.But they were deprived an oppurtunity to do so.But when you miss something so clear as ball four,because maybe you wanted to end the game or thought the ball looked good on the way to the batter,you can point the finger at human error. Umpires and referees arre only human and are subject to mistakes,but there needs to be a system in place to make sure bad calls aren't becoming the norm in Major League Baseball.
