I know this has nothing to do with Angels' baseball, but I thought it was interesting enough to write a quick post about...
While doing this morning's Halolinks, I came across this article about Ron Roenicke getting tossed for arguing balls and strikes: Ron Roenicke of Milwaukee Brewers -- Ump 'terrible behind plate' - ESPN, "With at least seven teams standing within striking distance of five playoff spots in the National League -- where the Brewers and Roenicke lead the Central by 1½ games with a month to play -- each game counts. But Roenicke was tossed for arguing about the first two pitches in Rivera's at-bat, which Ripperger had called balls. "He calls pitches that aren't even close," Roenicke said. "The catcher sets up 6 inches off the plate and he calls them strikes."
I often come across these posts saying so-and-so got mad about the umpire's zone, and how awful the games was called behind the plate. So I thought I'd check out Roenicke's claims about the crappy job Mark Ripperger was doing with his strike zone.
This first chart shows how Padres' starter Odrisamer Despaigne. You'll notice his strike zone gets extended slightly off the outside corner (for a RH batter):
The same for Brewers starter Yovani Gallardo:
In fact, the outside pitch was being called all night long:
Except for the at-bat Roenicke had a problem with:
Granted, pitch #2 was quite a bit outside, but the first pitch of the at-bat appears to be within the zone Ripperger had been calling all night, which is what Roenicke had an issue with.
I have no idea what should be done with situations like this other than some automated ball/strike gadget, but I do know one thing -- Frankie Rodriquez shouldn't throw a 2-0 pitch right down the heart of the plate.