There were few fans of the call that ended Thursday night’s Diamondbacks-Padres game — and Mark Grant wasn’t among them.
With San Diego trailing, 4-3, in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and the tying run on second base, Jake Cronenworth battled through six pitches to make it a 2-2 count before taking a 92-mph four-seam fastball from Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald for a called strike three.
The only problem was that the pitch was dialed right of the strike zone, which everyone other than home plate umpire Erich Bacchus was seemingly able to tell.
The punch-out caused play-by-play man Don Orsillo and his partner, Grant, to lose their composure.
“Strike three call. And that ends the ballgame. And that was not a strike,” Orsillo said, while boos rained down on Bacchus.
“Brutal! Horrible! Took the bat right out of the kid’s hands,” Grant jumped in. “Wasn’t even close.”
San Diego manager Mike Shildt came out to argue the call — unsuccessfully and earning him an ejection — as Grant continued on.
“You’ve got to be shaving me,” he said.
Cronenworth echoed Grant when asked about the game-ending call.
“It was a ball,” he said. “I don’t even know what to say, took the bat out of my hands at the end of the game.”
The loss now puts the Padres in a tough spot, tying their season-high with a five-game losing streak that has them 32-34.
“You’d like to have a chance to actually end the game on your own terms,” Shildt told reporters. “I respect the umpiring profession highly, and I don’t complain a lot. But I’ve got guys busting their [butts] all night, got a guy with a mild strain in his hip flexor willing to take an at-bat.
“Again, we lost, I’ll take ownership of that. I don’t want to blame anybody. But that’s a bad way to end a ballgame.”
