Mets-Padres game featured a crazy amount of missed calls by MLB's worst umpire

Enrico Pallazzo would be ashamed of this umpiring performance.

New York Yankees v Detroit Tigers
New York Yankees v Detroit Tigers / Mark Cunningham/GettyImages

C.B. Bucknor is one of those umpires we’re all familiar with because he tends to miss a lot of calls. Now that Angel Hernandez is retired, someone has to take the throne as the worst umpire in Major League Baseball. In Saturday’s game between the New York Mets and San Diego Padres, he was behind the plate and there was no sudden revelation.

In the third inning, Mets outfielder DJ Stewart found the politest way (or maybe he was trolling) to show Bucknor how to do his job better. Stewart has been a master of the strike zone this year, drawing walks in 16.9% of his plate appearances. The number has only recently gone down and umpires like Bucknor are a reason why. He’d successfully draw four balls on this play when he kindly asked Bucknor to dust off the plate after missing 9 calls before the third inning.

The Mets survived an attempted ump show on Saturday

If you watch through the above clip, you’ll find a ball called for a strike against Stewart. He’d strike out twice in this game and when the umpire is calling balls strikes, even someone as good at knowing what’s in or out of the box is going to have a rough day.

Fans don’t have much to complain about because of the win and how much it seemed to help Jose Quintana. He’d fan 6 in as many innings while walking just 2.

Padres fans should feel a little differently. Despite the expanded zone, their starter Adam Mazur walked 6 Mets batters. Bucknor might’ve gotten caught trying to speed the game along early because of Mazur’s inefficiency. Interestingly enough, in a game where 8 batters walked, only 2 happened after the third inning when the umpire was called out by Stewart for the messy plate. None of the relievers for either team threw a fourth ball with each securing at least one strikeout.

According to Umpire Scorecards, Bucknor has been 91.7% accurate this season in his 12 games behind the plate. This is indeed the worst in MLB. For an umpire who has been around since 1996, this is an unacceptable result.

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