It’s difficult to imagine a worse night to get the home-plate umpiring assignment than the hot, muggy 12-inning game in Chicago on Tuesday. But that doesn’t give an umpire the excuse to straight-up fail at his job.
Doug Eddings didn’t seem to care.
Both the Blue Jays and White Sox players were beyond frustrated on Tuesday as Eddings seemingly expanded his strike zone to unheard-of levels. According to Umpire Scorecards, Eddings incorrectly called 26 taken pitches in the game. Umpire Auditor had the performance even worse with Eddings missing 29 calls — the most missed calls in a game this season. His called-strike accuracy came in at a putrid 64 percent. It was an embarrassing effort all the way around.
Umpire: Doug Eddings
Final in 12: Blue Jays 6, White Sox 7#NextLevel // #ChangeTheGame#TORvsCWS // #CWSvsTOR pic.twitter.com/xF7KTGcGQi— Umpire Scorecards (@UmpScorecards) June 22, 2022
*NEW SEASON HIGH*
Umpire Doug Eddings missed a season high 29 calls in the #BlueJays #WhiteSox game for a correct call rate of 86.2%. This included 6 blown strikeouts. pic.twitter.com/UljFJn2I1A
— Umpire Auditor (@UmpireAuditor) June 22, 2022
And looking at the breakdown, it almost seemed like Eddings knew what he was doing. Nearly all of the missed calls were called strikes as he scored a 99 percent on called-ball accuracy. He basically wanted to speed up the game and go home, which backfired as the game went 12 innings. The White Sox won, 7-6.
Those frustrations seemed to boil over into Wednesday for the Blue Jays as hitting coach Guillermo Martínez got ejected while exchanging lineup cards before the game. He must have shown Eddings his scorecard.
#BlueJays hitting coach Guillermo Martínez was ejected before the first pitch was even thrown 😨😨#NextLevel #ChangeTheGame
🎥: @Sportsnet
— BetFTW (@Bet_ForTheWin) June 22, 2022
MLB fans understandably had plenty of thoughts on Eddings’ terrible night.