It took 11 innings, but the Cincinnati Reds have their first win of the new season. The Reds used a Dane Myers walk-off single to beat the Boston Red Sox Saturday afternoon at Great American Ball Park (CIN 6, BOS 5 in 11 innings). Wilyer Abreu’s two-out homer in the ninth inning sent the game to extras, then Myers eventually gave Cincinnati the win.
The story of the game was, unfortunately, home plate umpire C.B. Bucknor, who had a rough afternoon calling balls and strikes. He had six — six! — calls overturned via the ABS challenge system, including back-to-back pitches by Eugenio Suárez in the sixth inning. There were eight challenges in the game overall, five by the Reds (5 for 5) and three by the Red Sox (1 for 3).
Here are the overturned calls:
The frustration seemed to boil over in the eighth inning, when Bucknor called Trevor Story out on a check swing strike three without checking with the first base umpire. The check swing call ended the inning with the tying run at second and the go-ahead run at first. Red Sox manager Alex Cora got ejected while protecting Story after the call.
Here is Story’s strikeout and Cora’s ejection.
“He has one job to do. It wasn’t his best day,” Cora said about Bucknor after the game.
Snyder’s Soapbox: ABS is not ’embarrassing’ MLB umpires, it’s making them better
Matt Snyder
Entering play Saturday, the league was 35 for 60 (58%) in ABS challenges. That is broken down into 10 for 20 for hitters and 25 for 40 (63%) for catchers. Throughout the minors, catchers had the best success rate, which makes sense given their vantage point. Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez went a perfect 3 for 3 on challenges on Opening Day.
Bucknor, 63, has been a major-league umpire since 1996. He is one of the two longest-tenured active umpires. Although it may lead to some embarrassing games and moments, ABS challenges aren’t there to make umpires look silly. It’s there to help them.