The Orioles have now been called for 8 balks now this season, twice as many as the #2 balking pitching staffs in the league, Toronto and Chicago. I 've seen games in which 2 of those 7 previous balks occured, that ended up helping to decide the outcome of Baltimore losses. Those were both widely viewed as legitimate balk calls by both TV and radio announcers, but not this evening's call. Steve Kline was waiting for his sign, stepped off the pitching rubber, was called for the balk, appeared to be (politely) questioning the parentage of the umpires, and was ejected. HOFer Jim Palmer was on the TV side tonight, and couldn't have been more definitive in dismissing the call as wrong. The balk ended up leading to a Yankees run.
Times like this make me wonder why baseball can't have some kind of replay system. It's a rhetorical question, of course, because the umpires are so involved with the mechanics of the game, if you added instant replay you'd be that much closer to electronically determining the strike zone and calling balls and strikes using a computer. So......why can't baseball have some kind of a replay system?
Now I hear from the announcers that the NYY starter, Carl Pavano, was evidently called for a balk earlier in the game (I wasn't watching until the 5th inning), that helped the O's score a run. So maybe the umpires this season are working on commission, bonuses for every balk call?
That Baltimore has not been playing well lately is a gross understatement. Emblematic of that, the fact that tonight the excellent defensive catcher Sal Fasano had 3 passed balls? It's a strange game, baseball.
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