MLB ANNOUNCERS CONTINUE TO TROLL UMPIRES

Monday saw Yankees skipper Aaron Boone get ejected in the first inning of an opening series against the Oakland A’s after home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt thought chatter from unhappy fans was coming from New York’s dugout.

The umpire critiques went coast-to-coast. After the Yankees’ announcers had their say on Tuesday, Mets broadcasters Gary Cohen and Duane Kuiper joined the chorus with playful jabs at Wendelstedt’s incident with Boone on the West Coast.

During the game in San Francisco, the Mets, particularly manager Carlos Mendoza and hitting coach Eric Chavez, were unhappy with umpire Lance Barrett’s calls. According to a report by @UmpScorecards on X (formerly Twitter), the Mets may have had a legitimate gripe. The pitch in question appeared to be a ball, as you can see in detail below. Additionally, Barrett’s called strike accuracy was only 80%, significantly lower than the average rate of 88%.

While that’s beyond the point here, it gives background to why Barrett was warning the Mets coaching staff. And it also led to Cohen and Kuiper getting off some jokes of their own about overall umpire behavior across the big leagues while making some backhanded remarks in Wendelstedt’s general direction.

“Lance Barrett gets some heat from the Mets dugout,” said Cohen. “We mentioned that he was a pitcher’s umpire, and he called that borderline pitch a strike, and he clearly was hearing some chirping.”

That led to Cohen jokingly asking if it was Carlos Mendoza or a fan sitting behind him.

“Ha, I see what you said,” Keith Hernandez replied with a sort of delayed response. “Very clever. You’re a funny guy, you know that?”

On the NBC Sports Bay Area broadcast, you can clearly make out Barrett barking at Mendoza that the Mets manager wasn’t going to be yelling at him all game, and he was officially warning him.

“Lance Barrett not happy with someone in the Mets dugout,” Kuiper said. “Let’s just hope it’s not a fan that’s doing the yelling.”

So, if either Major League Baseball or Wendelstedt thought this was going away anytime soon, they might want to think again.

[Awful Announcing on X]

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2024-04-24T19:07:37Z dg43tfdfdgfd