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

Umpire Lance Barksdale incredibly missed just one call in Game 5 and it still had Trea Turner fuming

Trea Turner Game 5 MLB Phillies

For much of this MLB postseason, the umpiring has left plenty to be desired. We’ve seen missed calls in critical moments and inconsistency across the board. But we can’t say that about umpire Lance Barksdale after Saturday’s Game 5 of the NLCS.

He came within inches of a perfect night.

Barksdale — who ranked in the top third of umpires during the regular season — got the home plate assignment for Saturday’s game in Arizona. And the longtime umpire came about as close as one could get to a robot-ump performance. Out of the 129 taken pitches in the game, he called 128 of them accurately.

That one miss, though, just happened to be a huge call.

In the third inning, Barksdale called Trea Turner out on strikes after a 3-2 fastball missed the zone inside. Turner was understandably livid about the call, and he was fortunate to not get ejected for arguing balls and strikes. It was the kind of missed call that had much of MLB Twitter criticizing Barksdale because you’re going to remember a missed strikeout every time.

But when it came time to see the scorecard, it was clear that Barksdale had himself a masterclass behind the plate.

If you want to know what it’s like being an MLB umpire, just look at that night Barksdale had. He put together the best performance of his life and still got yelled at because he made *one* mistake. It’s not an easy job at all.

This was how Twitter reacted

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