A needed change

I love baseball, especially October baseball, especially October baseball when I don't have a stake in it. If there's anything positive about my beloved Detroit Tigers not making the postseason, it's that I can watch the games for their own sake rather than chew my fingernails to the bone fretting over the performance of the Detroit Nine. 

Like most baseball purists (and I certainly am one of those) I don't like changes to the game and I worship tradition. There are rumors swirling around that the National League will adopt the designated hitter next year, a move I will offer a giant raspberry. Pitchers should bat. Period. It's in the natural order of things; anything else is barbarity.

Now, where was I? Oh yes: as a purist I don't care for the various innovations which have crept into the grand old game. But after last night's ALCS match between Boston and Houston, I have to come down solidly in favor of using the existing technology and going to the robot strike zone.

It's time. Human umpires are making too many glaring mistakes calling balls and strikes and that element simply has to be removed from the game. Human judgment affected last night's game far too profoundly. J. D. Martinez was called out on strikes in the fourth inning on a pitch clearly out of the strike zone, while the Red Sox lost what should have been an inning ending strikeout in the top of the ninth, after which the Astros scored seven and put the game away.

Yes, yes, yes, the Red Sox still had other chances. They didn't do well with runners in scoring position. Still, how different does that fourth inning become if Martinez gets first base and the Sox have two runners on with one out? How different is the outcome of the game if Boston gets the strikeout they should have gotten to end the Houston ninth? Conjecture, true, so that we never can know for certain.

Still, fairness demands we make things as right as possible. One way to do that is with robot strike zones.