Mason Miller’s Scoreless Innings Streak Ends After One of the Worst Calls You’ll Ever See

Mason Miller is human after all.

On Monday night, the Padres’ star reliever allowed his first run since August 5 of last year as the Cubs broke through to score twice. They had a little help in doing so.

San Diego came back from down 5-3 to take a 9-5 lead entering the ninth inning. Padres manager Craig Stammen opted to go with Miller for the top of the ninth anyway. Matt Shaw led off the inning and rolled a swinging bunt up the third base line on a 1-1 slider. Ty France was manning the position for San Diego and allowed it to roll foul. Or so he thought.

Home plate umpire Dan Merzel followed the ball up the line, and when France picked it up, he called it fair. There’s one problem: it wasn’t. There was a visible distance between the ball and the foul line, and enough distance that no part of the ball was touching the line. Stammen came out and protested, so Merzel asked for help from third base umpire Shane Livensparger. For some reason, he didn’t overturn the call. It was a shocking decision.

For some reason, fair/foul calls that do not go past the set positions of the first or third-base umpire are not reviewable.

You be the judge:

Home plate umpire Dan Merzel called the ball fair, giving Matt Shaw a single despite it appearing clearly foul pic.twitter.com/yck1JiRPnx
— Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) April 28, 2026

Here’s a still:

Called fair btw pic.twitter.com/HyGpYofhvf
— Giannis Auntiegotapoodle (@TooMuchMortons_) April 28, 2026

The rules state that if any part of the ball is over the line, it is a fair ball. From multiple angles it was clear the ball was too far from the line to be hanging over it. Here’s another look:

Ty France, San Diego Padres — There appears to be far too much dirt between the ball and the line for any part of the ball to be in fair territory. | Via MLB TV

Let’s zoom in again.

From every angle, the ball was foul. And far enough foul that it should have been obvious, and overturned.

There’s no telling what would have happened had that been properly called, but Miller struggled for the rest of the inning. He entered the game having surrendered three hits all season, and including Shaw’s “hit,” he allowed three in a row. Dansby Swanson followed with a single to left, and Pete Crow-Armstrong singled to right to load the bases.

Nico Hoerner grounded into a force out at second that scored Shaw, sent Swanson to third, and saw Crow-Armstrong forced at second. Miller uncorked a wild pitch with Michael Busch at the plate to score Swanson and cut San Diego's lead to 9-7. He got Busch to ground out to first, then locked in to strike out Alex Bregman on three sliders to end the game.

Miller’s scoreless innings streak ended at 34 2/3 innings, and for the first time this season, he has an ERA. It’s 1.26, while his WHIP jumped to 0.56. Who knows what would have happened if Merzel had gotten that call right, or if it could have been reviewed.

Mason Miller’s stats in 2026

On the season, Miller is now 1-0 with the aforementioned 1.26 ERA, 0.56 WHIP, and 28 strikeouts against two walks in 14 1/3 innings over 14 appearances. He also has 10 saves in 10 chances. Miller is averaging 17.6 strikeouts per nine, and has a ridiculous strikeout rate of 56%. Second place is Pirates reliever Mason Montgomery at 41.2%.

Despite the mess made by the umpires on Monday night, Miller is still the most unhittable pitcher in baseball this season.

We’ll see if Miller bounces back from the mess made by the umpires on Monday night. He hadn’t allowed a run in nearly nine months before that debacle, so it had to be disappointing.

Given his mound demeanor, I doubt surrendering those runs will rattle him.