David Schoenfield, ESPN Senior Writer 10y

Ron Roenicke doesn't want robot umps

So you may have seen Brewers manager Ron Roenicke go off on umpire Mark Ripperger after the Brewers' 3-2 loss to the Padres on Wednesday. Roenicke said the Brewers have had Ripperger before "and he is terrible behind home plate" and admitted he probably should have been tossed from the game in the second inning. Roenicke was ejected after Rene Rivera tied the game with a home run in the ninth.

"He calls pitches that aren't even close," Roenicke said. "The catcher sets up six inches off the plate and he calls them strikes."

What apparently upset Roenicke were the first two pitches to Rivera from Francisco Rodriguez -- both significantly outside, both called balls, setting up a 2-0 fastball that Rodriguez threw down the middle. Roenicke's issue, I suppose, was that those pitches were called strikes earlier in the game.

According to our data at ESPN Stats & Information, Ripperger is actually pretty good at calling strikes -- with a "correct call" percentage of 89.5 on the season, he ranks above the overall average of 88.4. He didn't have his best game on Wednesday, with a correct call rate of 87.2 percent, although I doubt Roenicke could determine such a small number sitting on the bench. Here's the Brooks Baseball plot of Ripperger's called strikes.

Doesn't look like that bad of a game.

I'd add two things:

--Even if Ripperger had made some bad calls earlier, two wrongs don't necessarily make a right, although the one thing players and managers want from an umpire is consistency.

--If there's one team that shouldn't complain about the strike zone, it's probably the Brewers. Thanks to the pitch-framing abilities of Jonathan Lucroy (and backup Martin Maldonado, who is also very good), the Brewers probably benefit from more pitches out of the strike zone called strikes than any other team.

OK, let's go to the data on that one. According to the Baseball Savant web site, which parses PITCHf/x data, the Brewers are fifth in the majors in pitches out of the strike zone that are called strikes -- behind the Padres, Rays, Red Sox and Yankees.

In other words, Roenicke better not hope we get robot umps while he still has Lucroy behind the plate. In the end, the Brewers are going to catch more breaks from the umps than their opponents.

Chalk this one up to a manager overreacting after a tough loss.

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