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This Ain't It

It's literally not possible to screw up a call as badly as this ump did at the end of the Braves-Phillies game

You ever get into an argument with someone about the overuse of replay in sports? I certainly have, my spiel often being that it kills the flow of games and has turned exciting, bang-bang plays into "wait, hold on now, did the ball lightly graze a loose thread on his pants? If so, he's OUT!" It has reached a point of almost being silly in some situations.

However, the person on replay's side always has a trump card - replay ensures that the correct call is made. Mic drop.

But then a night like Sunday nigtht Atlanta comes along, when even with the use of replay, the umpires still managed to royally F up a game-changing call at the plate. With the game tied at 6-6 in the top of the ninth, the visiting Phillies had Didi Gregorious at the plate with one out and a runner on third. Gregorious popped one up to shallow left field, deep enough for Phils' third baseman Alec Bohm to tag up and force Braves left fielder Marcel Ozuna to have to make a throw home.

Ozuna's throw wasn't perfect, but it was good enough to two-hop into the glove of catcher Travis D'Arnaud well ahead of Bohm's slide. He made the tag and it was the clearest out it could be, but the ump called Bohm safe:

You may be asking yourself, how can we tell he's safe or not safe from that video? And you'd be right to question, but you'll also notice that the Phillies Twitter account cut off the video before the slow-mo replay, which is definitely something a team who is NOT trying to hide something would do. Totally. 

Let's see an actual angle: 

And a million more angles that show how out this dude was:

As you can see, they even went to replay for far too long, as they often do, and STILL got it wrong. What exactly is the point of killing the game flow to "try to get the call right" if you're not going to actually get it right? It's wild. 

Some folks (Phillies fans) are arguing that D'Arnaud was blocking the runner's path, which would make the runner safe under the Buster Posey rule. The problem with that take is A. he wasn't, and B. if he was, then that's how the ump should have called it. He straight up called him safe thinking he was safe, then went to replay and upheld it, despite zero evidence of Bohm ever touching home plate. But yeah, replay works! It worked for the Phillies, who wound up winning 7-6 to move to 6-3 on the year and stay two games ahead of the Braves atop the NL East standings.