


Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes wasn’t happy about a call in Sunday’s 5-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves, and he wasn’t afraid to air his grievances online the following day.
Hayes took to X, formerly Twitter, to put home plate umpire Bill Miller on blast for a call he made in the top of the eighth inning with the count sitting at 3-1.
“Some umpires really don’t care. 3-1 call not even close,” he wrote on X. “I hold him accountable after the game walking off the field and his response is ‘I gave you a chance to hit a homerun’ that tells me you don’t care at all. No accountability. Bring the ABS please @MLB.”
The post was accompanied by a screenshot of the pitch with a graphic showing the pitch well outside the strike zone.
Umpires in Major League Baseball have come under increased scrutiny this year with the number of questionable calls piling up over the course of the season.
While some in baseball, like Yankees manager Aaron Boone, have said they want to keep human umpires a part of the game, others like Hayes have grown frustrated.
Robo umps, officially known as the automatic ball-strike system (ABS), have been rolled out in minor league baseball.
It was being used in Triple-A this season.
However, it doesn’t seem like it will reach the majors just yet.
In a June interview with ESPN, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred had said it wouldn’t likely make it to the bigs in 2024.
“I think there’s some sentiment among the group that we made had a lot of changes here,” Manfred told the outlet. “We ought to let the dust settle, and there are clearly unresolved operational issues with respect to ABS. Despite all the testing, we still have some things that are unresolved.”