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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Andrew Joseph

The umpire who had the Phillies livid on Sunday actually had an amazing game behind the plate

If all you saw were two video clips from Sunday’s game between the Twins and Phillies, it would have been easy to assume that home plate umpire Alex MacKay had a terrible afternoon behind the plate.

Those clips didn’t tell the whole story because MacKay actually had his best game of the entire season.

The controversy came in the seventh inning when Mackay ruled that a would-be, bases-loaded walk was an inning-ending strikeout. He rung up Alec Bohm, who furiously spiked his bat, and Bohm was quickly ejected for the theatrics. The following inning, a borderline call on Bryce Harper had the Phillies star arguing with MacKay. Phillies manager Rob Thomson came out and was ejected.

Again, that all looked terrible. And given how upset the Phillies were, it would have been safe to guess that MacKay was in for a rough scorecard come Monday. About that …

According to Umpire Scorecards, MacKay called 98 percent of taken pitches correctly. The missed call on Bohm was impactful (accounted for 1.57 runs almost by itself), but it was just one of three missed calls he had for the entire afternoon — 141 of 144 pitches were called accurately. And the third strike that Harper took issue with? It would have been a strike even with robot umps by catching the smallest sliver of the zone.

Out of the 13 games MacKay has worked behind the plate this season, Sunday was his best performance and only the second time he’s had fewer than five incorrect calls in a game.

It’s wild how that works. MLB fans were certainly surprised.

This was how Twitter reacted

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