Baseball

MLB umpire Ángel Hernández is retiring effective immediately, ending a controversial three-decade-long career that in recent years turned Hernández into a source of consternation with players and a punching bag among fans on social media.

The 62-year-old Hernández, who in a statement confirmed earlier reports he would be retiring, reached a settlement to leave Major League Baseball, according to a source, and will leave after umpiring thousands of games since his debut in 1991.

Hernández, who worked his last game May 9 and was replaced on Lance Barksdale's crew by Jacob Metz, sued MLB in 2017, alleging the league had engaged in racial discrimination. The lawsuit was thrown out by a district court judge, a decision upheld by an appeals court last year.

With a penchant for bad calls -- during a 2018 playoff game, he had three calls reversed by replay in the first four innings -- Hernández received a disproportionate amount of odium from fans. The lawsuit only added to the animus Hernández generated, and the groundswell grew to the point that Hernández retired after missing much of the 2023 season with a back injury.

An automated ball-strike system may be headed to Major League Baseball sometime in the future, but any such changes are unlikely to take place by the 2025 season.

Commissioner Rob Manfred, speaking after the conclusion of the owners meetings at MLB’s offices in midtown Manhattan, said that some “issues” remain in the Minor Leagues, likely delaying the installment of the system -- widely known as ABS -- until at least 2026.

“We still have some technical issues; I don't mean technology, I mean technical issues in terms of the operation of the system,” Manfred said. “We haven't made as much progress in the Minor Leagues this year as we hoped at this point. I think it's becoming more and more likely that this will not be a go for ’25.

“One thing we did learn with the changes that we went through last year is taking the extra time to make sure you have it right is definitely the best approach. I think we're going to use that same approach here.”

Among the issues are the definition of the strike zone and setting the strike zone for individual batters, which can be based on percentages of a player’s height or the positioning of camera systems.

“I'm not sure that anybody is wholly satisfied with either approach,” Manfred said. “We have not started those conversations [with the MLBPA] because we haven't settled on what we think about it. It’s hard to have those conversations before you know what you're thinking.”

Manfred said there has been progress -- a “growing consensus,” as he put it -- based largely on feedback from players that if and when ABS makes it way to the Majors, the Challenge form “should be the form of ABS … at least as a starting point.” That system gives each team a limited number of challenges in each game to use in order to review a ball or strike call.

“Originally we thought everybody was going to be wholeheartedly in favor of the idea; if you can get it right every single time, that's a great idea,” Manfred said. “One thing we've learned in these meetings is that the players feel there could be other effects on the game that would be negative if you used it full-blown. The second one is those who have played with it do have a strong preference for the Challenge system over ABS calling every pitch. That has certainly altered our thinking on where we might be headed.”

One of those effects -- or as Manfred put it, “unintended consequences” -- of instituting a system in which ABS calls every pitch is the effect it would have on catchers who excel in framing.

“I think the players feel that a catcher that frames is part of the art of the game,” Manfred said. “If in fact framing is no longer important, the kind of players that would occupy that position might be different than they are today. You could hypothesize a world where instead of a premium catcher who's focused on defense, the catching position becomes a more offensive player. That alters people's careers, so those are real, legitimate concerns that we need to think all the way through before we jump off that bridge.”

Cubs lefty Shota Imanaga stood on the mound and yelled, soaking in the noise at Wrigley Field after striking out Michael A. Taylor to end the seventh inning on Saturday afternoon. He then slowly walked off the field with some more history in his back pocket.

With another seven scoreless frames for the North Siders in a 1-0 walk-off win over the Pirates, Imanaga lowered his ERA to 0.84 on the season. No pitcher in baseball history has posted a lower mark through their first nine career starts since ERA became an official statistic in 1913.

“When you start getting in this territory,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said, “you have to be a little surprised, for sure. We're fortunate to watch it.”

Prior to Imanaga’s run out of the gates this season, the lowest ERA through nine career starts (excluding openers) was the 0.91 mark spun by Fernando Valenzuela in his sensational rookie showing for the Dodgers in 1981.

It wasn't just any ol' lucky fan who caught left fielder Spencer Steer's foul ball in the fourth inning of the Reds' 7-3 loss to the Dodgers on Friday night at Dodger Stadium.

The catch was made by Steer's fraternal twin brother, Trevor, who was seated in the loge section behind home plate with several members of their family.

On a 93 mph first pitch from James Paxton, Steer fouled it back, and the ball zoomed right to his brother.

“It was coming right back at me," Trevor Steer said. "I was like, ‘I’ve got to do something.’ It was pretty wild.”

Wearing a Reds cap backward and his brother's former No. 12 jersey that he wore in 2022, Trevor Steer stood up and pointed to the last name on the back to the crowd seated around him.

The Dodger Stadium faithful responded with a round of boos.

“It’s pretty cool," Spencer Steer said. "It’s hard for him to get to games. I think it was the first game he’s seen all year and I hit a foul ball to him. Pretty crazy odds but a really cool story.”

The late innings of lopsided contests are often times for things to get weird. But David Fletcher slinging unhittable knuckleballs? You can add that to the completed part of your baseball-watching bucket list.

With Triple-A Gwinnett having played a doubleheader Tuesday and falling behind 10-2 through seven-and-a-half frames just hours later Wednesday afternoon at AutoZone Park, the bullpen was understandably tapped out. So for the second time in a week – and just the second time in his pro career, which began in 2015 – Fletcher jogged over to the mound from his starting spot on the infield.

Was the 29-year-old slinging sliders? Changeups? Curveballs? Not even Statcast could entirely pinpoint it. (Which is largely due to the fact that not much data exists on a player who before May 8 had never as so much toed the rubber in a professional setting.) But the nine times that Memphis batters swung at something that looked an awful lot like a knuckleball, they missed six of them.