So how bad were the umpires? Game 1

One of the major themes of the Red Sox series was unhappiness with the umpires, so I decided to do a little investigation via MLB's Game Day. Obviously it's not a science with them; they are only as good as whoever is entering the data. But it certainly interesting to take a look at.

I first took a look at game 1, which the Red Sox won 4-0. In the game the Red Sox sent 39 men to the plate in the game, and by my count they had 5 batters who received borderline calls and 10 batters who had pitches that were blatently called incorrectly. That's 38% of Red Sox batters who potentially had incorrect calls against them. You be the judge.

(note: if there is a strike out of the zone that I don't mention, the batter swung)

This is Mark Kotsay in the 2nd inning. After pitch two was called a strike he probably felt he had to swing at the third pitch.  

Kotsay again in the 3rd inning. After getting a ball called on the second pitch, the third was called a strike despite being even further outside.

Check out ball one on Kevin Youkilis in the 3rd. Looks pretty good, especially compared to pitches four and five, both of which were called strikes.

Jason Varitek takes a pitch right down the middle of the plate for ball 1 in the 4th inning.

This one is my favorite. Dustin Pedroia walks on 4 pitches in the 6th inning.

The third pitch to David Ortiz in the 7th looks pretty good to me.

Maybe the third pitch to Jacoby Ellsbury in the 8th inning could be considered borderline, but all the same.

Also in the 8th inning, Jason Varitek takes a ridiculous called strike one.

Strike one to Nick Green in the 8th inning is high and tight, but maybe the umpire realized because he made up for it by calling the second pitch a ball.

Finally, in the 9th inning David Ortiz gets the call of ball 1 despite the location of the pitch.

So that's ten calls to Red Sox batters. 6 of them got pitches in the strike zone called balls. 3 of them got pitches called strikes when out of the zone, and Nick Green got one of each. To take a look at some other calls to Red Sox batters click here.

Now, the Orioles. In this game I counted six O's batters that were clearly had pitches called incorrectly, and eight that could be considered borderline. That's 14 out of 35 plate appearances (40%).

In the first inning, Brian Roberts gets the call on the third pitch despite its location.

Nick Markakis also catches a break with the fourth pitch here in the 4th inning.

In the 4th inning, Aubrey Huff takes pitches 2 and 3 for ridiculous strikes before chasing a ball for the K.

Here in the 4th inning Nolan Reimold gets a charitable call on pitch 2.

Adam Jones gets the Pedroia treatment in the 8th inning.

Aubrey Huff just can't get a break as the 2nd pitch is absurdly called a strike.

So that's six batters with questionable calls for the O's. 4 went the O's way while Aubrey Huff got screwed. To look at some more click here.

So overall the umpiring for the first game was inconsistent but didn't really appear to favor either team. At least, not from what I could tell from my crack Game Day investigation. While doing this I started to wonder what the across the board percentage is for pitches called correctly. If you go by number of batters in this game, the umpires got a call wrong on about 40% of them, which seems pretty high. But I'd imagine if you went by the number of pitches thrown, the number wouldn't seem that bad.  What is considered a normal margin of error?

Next up, Game 2! It's uglier than this one.