Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez has emerged as the top performer in Major League Baseball’s new Automated Ball-Strike System during the season’s opening weekend, posting a flawless 4-0 record when disputing umpire calls.
The Royals and Arizona Diamondbacks stand as the only clubs with perfect challenge records, with Kansas City at 4-0 and Arizona at 3-0. Meanwhile, Houston struggled mightily at 0-6, and St. Louis went 0-3 in their appeals.
Among individual batters, San Francisco’s Heliot Ramos and Cincinnati’s Eugenio Suárez were the sole players to achieve 2-0 records on their challenges, with Suárez successfully overturning calls on back-to-back pitches. Los Angeles Angels superstar Mike Trout posted a 3-1 mark, while Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña Jr. was the only batter to go 0-2.
Teams are being strategic about when to use their challenges, focusing on critical moments in at-bats.
“1-1 counts. Counts that are going to end the at-bat. Those are big challenge times,” said Phillies manager Rob Thomson, whose team went 4-3.
The challenge system showed a 53.7% success rate across 47 games, with 175 total appeals averaging 3.7 per contest. Catchers proved more effective than batters, winning 59 of 92 challenges for a 64% success rate, while batters succeeded on just 33 of 78 attempts for 42%. Pitchers rarely challenged calls, with only five attempts total.
Cincinnati batters dominated with a perfect 6-0 record, while Atlanta hitters failed on all four of their challenges.
Umpire C.B. Bucknor faced the most scrutiny when six of eight challenges against his calls were overturned during Cincinnati’s 6-5, 11-inning victory Saturday. All six reversed decisions involved strikes being changed to balls.
Boston manager Alex Cora was ejected by Bucknor in that same game for arguing a checked swing ruling.
“I feel bad for them because everybody has a bad day,” Thomson said of the umpires. “The last thing you want to see is somebody get embarrassed. I don’t care who it is, player, coach, umpire. I don’t want to ever see anybody get embarrassed playing this game.”
Minnesota manager Derek Shelton made history Sunday as the first skipper ejected for disputing an ABS-related call, getting tossed in the ninth inning against Baltimore after protesting that pitcher Ryan Helsley took too long to request a review.
The new system, implemented this season, allows teams to contest strike zone decisions through technology utilizing 12 Hawk-Eye cameras that determine whether pitches cross the strike zone with precision within approximately one-sixth of an inch.
