There are bad ball/strike calls, and then there’s what cost Yoshinobu Yamamoto an immaculate inning on Thursday.
The Los Angeles Dodgers’ star had the achievement — a three-strikeout inning on nine pitches — in hand against the San Diego Padres in the third inning. Bryce Johnson was called out on strikes, Martín Maldonado struck out swinging, and Fernando Tatis Jr. fell behind 0-2.
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One pitch away from an achievement more rare than a no-hitter, Yamamoto reared back and delivered a fastball right down the middle, which Tatis didn’t even swing at.
Ball 1, according to home plate umpire Marvin Hudson. Take a look at the pitch for yourself:
The pitch tracking wasn’t too charitable to Hudson. Sure, the pitch was a bit up in the zone, but this is called a strike 99 times out of 100. Yamamoto just managed to get the one out of 100 on the verge of a real achievement.
That’s not going to quiet the calls for robot umps.
After a curveball was rightfully called low for ball 2, Yamamoto struck Tatis out with a cutter out of the zone. So he had to settle for an 11-pitch, three-strikeout inning. Yamamoto finished the day with seven hits and three runs allowed in 6 1/3 innings, with five strikeouts and no walks.
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The ninth inning wound up overshadowing Yamamoto’s performance, as the two teams exchanged hit-by-pitches and cleared their benches in the final chapter of a testy series. The Padres won 5-3.
There has been one immaculate inning in MLB this season, thrown by Cal Quantrill for the Miami Marlins on May 18. They sound like a simple enough achievement, but the fact is they are extremely rare. Only 118 have been thrown in MLB history, compared to 326 no-hitters recognized by MLB, and only three pitchers — Sandy Koufax, Chris Sale, Max Scherzer — have thrown more than two immaculate innings in their careers.
