For much of this MLB postseason, the umpiring has left plenty to be desired. We’ve seen missed calls in critical moments and inconsistency across the board. But we can’t say that about umpire Lance Barksdale after Saturday’s Game 5 of the NLCS.
He came within inches of a perfect night.
Barksdale — who ranked in the top third of umpires during the regular season — got the home plate assignment for Saturday’s game in Arizona. And the longtime umpire came about as close as one could get to a robot-ump performance. Out of the 129 taken pitches in the game, he called 128 of them accurately.
That one miss, though, just happened to be a huge call.
Trea Turner is PISSED pic.twitter.com/Zt2Dn1WMd9
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) October 22, 2023
In the third inning, Barksdale called Trea Turner out on strikes after a 3-2 fastball missed the zone inside. Turner was understandably livid about the call, and he was fortunate to not get ejected for arguing balls and strikes. It was the kind of missed call that had much of MLB Twitter criticizing Barksdale because you’re going to remember a missed strikeout every time.
But when it came time to see the scorecard, it was clear that Barksdale had himself a masterclass behind the plate.
Umpire: Lance Barksdale
Final: Phillies 6, D-backs 1#RingTheBell // #Dbacks#PHIvsAZ // #AZvsPHI#PostseasonMore stats for this game 👇https://t.co/qPkb3IJYhe pic.twitter.com/d3d8ZsMcCm
— Umpire Scorecards (@UmpScorecards) October 22, 2023
If you want to know what it’s like being an MLB umpire, just look at that night Barksdale had. He put together the best performance of his life and still got yelled at because he made *one* mistake. It’s not an easy job at all.
This was how Twitter reacted
He blew that Trea Turner ball early in the game but honestly Lance Barksdale was by far the best umpire I've seen in either the Phillies series or the Astros/Rangers series so far https://t.co/7tTnK3ONT7
— Chris 🎃IIey (@chrisoIIey) October 22, 2023
This is KILLING IT!!! In a pivotal game to have a game like this is absolutely impressive! https://t.co/IG3SEw4zrk
— Kevin Frandsen (@KevinFrandsen) October 22, 2023
Credit where it's due, Lance Barksdale was on a heater last night https://t.co/0J29vOTDtd
— Lindsay Crosby, big baseball guy (@CrosbyBaseball) October 22, 2023
We often rip umpires for getting things wrong. But we should also praise them – last night, Lance Barksdale was almost perfect. https://t.co/iXAZD01EP6
— AZ SnakePit (@AZSnakepit) October 22, 2023
Didn’t realize how incredible Barksdale was besides the one pitch to Trea. https://t.co/wSCLD2unZ5
— Isaac (@philly_isaac) October 22, 2023
This is spectacular. And why Angel Hernandez doesn’t get impactful playoff work https://t.co/LC5PcT6yHa
— Andrew Hoffmanñ (@AndrewHoffman11) October 22, 2023
I’m actually kinda shocked he was this accurate but I guess the Turner strike 3 was really the only bad call https://t.co/CxZ48W7p55
— Daniel (@BornToDiePoor) October 22, 2023
Get this man on a flight to Houston rn https://t.co/7DOWytxQ57
— Lane (@lanesmith_24) October 22, 2023
After some horrible umpiring in the NLCS, Lance Barksdale was only 1 call from a perfect game.
That 1 call?
Gallen’s ONLY strikeout. https://t.co/DTj3DOIYNP
— Alex D’Agostino (@AlexDagAZ) October 22, 2023
