Can't Blame Rick Sutcliffe for Wanting to Fight the Home Plate Umpire

I'm not the biggest fan of announcers complaining non-stop about home plate umps, but once in a while, it is exactly what you want to hear when you're tuning in to a broadcast. Rick Sutcliffe was in the booth for the Cubs series against the San Diego Padres and on Monday night it sounded like he wanted to strangle Phil Cuzzi, who was the home plate ump in the series finale. I can't blame him.

Sutcliffe was every Cubs fan watching Monday night, as the bad strike zone from Cuzzi was on full display from the very first inning. Both Dansby Swanson and Seiya Suzuki were called out on strikes on pitches that were outside of the strike zone. Then, in the second inning, rookie catcher Miguel Amaya was called out on strikes on another pitch that was out of the zone and instead of another base runner for the Cubs it was an out.

Absolutely terrible and no, I will never agree with the thought that each ump has their strike zone and it's up to the players to adjust. Bullshit. The strike zone is the strike zone. It shouldn't be changing game to game, inning to inning, batter to batter and hell, sometimes it's even pitch to pitch.

The Cubs were shutout, losing 5-0 as Blake Snell tossed six innings, giving up just two hits and three walks, while striking out eight.

Maybe the bad calls don't make a huge difference, but Snell was laboring through the first few innings and he was getting bailed out. Overall, Cuzzi called 40 strikes, 7 should have been called balls.

In the bottom of the second inning, Cubs manager David Ross was ejected after arguing with Cuzzi, who all of a sudden wasn't calling strikes for Kyle Hendricks despite similar locations that did get strike calls for Snell. As you could tell, Sutcliffe was pissed off.

Give me sort of challenge system. I know some fans don't want MLB to go full automated strike zone and that's fine, but the league has to do something because umpires fuck up too often.

I just can't get over this shit.

By the way, there was a reason Sutcliffe was all over Cuzzi from the very first inning. He knows, Cuzzi has been awful for years and yet he has the best job security in the world.

It's annoying as hell because it doesn't seem like MLB does much when it comes to bad umps.

Here's another Phil Cuzzi gem from earlier this season in a much more high leverage situation. Bases loaded in extra innings and he does this.

So yeah, sometimes announcers can be a little over the top when going at umps, but I still won't blame Rick Sutcliffe for his outburst on Cuzzi Monday night.