03/25/26 11:00:00
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03/25 22:58 CDT Yankees' Jos Caballero loses first robot challenge of
ball/strike call
Yankees' Jos Caballero loses first robot challenge of ball/strike call
By JANIE McCAULEY
AP Baseball Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --- New York's Jos Caballero thought for sure the pitch
from Logan Webb had missed the strike zone, so he challenged --- making major
league history in the process.
Caballero lost the first challenge taken to Major League Baseball's so-called
robot umpire, unsuccessfully appealing a strike by the San Francisco Giants
right-hander in Wednesday night's season opener won 7-0 by the Yankees.
Caballero didn't hesitate. "Nope, I wanted to go for it," he said.
Webb started the fourth inning with a 90.7 mph sinker on the upper, inner
corner that was called a strike by Bill Miller, a major league umpire since
1997. Caballero tapped his helmet, and the 12 Hawk-Eye cameras of the Automated
Ball-Strike System upheld Miller's decision in a graphic shown on the Oracle
Park scoreboard.
"I thought it was a little higher that what it showed," Caballero said.
"I think it's really good, keep everyone accountable," he added. "It gives us a
chance to really see how good (we are) with the zone or not. I wish it was the
other way around, I'm trying to get the overturn call but this time I didn't."
New York was ahead 5-0 at the time. Caballero drove in the first run with an
RBI single in a five-run second inning against Webb, who recorded his 1,000th
career strikeout in the fourth.
The automated system had been tested in the minor leagues since 2019 and was
used during major league spring training in 2025 and '26. Some managers have
said they will still find ways to argue and get ejected.
Before Wednesday's game, Yankees manager Aaron Boone spoke in support of ABS
and the importance of discussing decisions on challenges with his team ahead of
time.
"We've had a lot of dialogue at it. It's something that we've poured a lot
into, I've certainly," Boone said. "It's become one of the things I've kind of
tried to lead the charge on a little bit. Another kind of end-of-spring meeting
with all the position players and catchers at the end just kind of running
through different ones that came up and give my feedback on it. I've been very
direct with them during spring as far as after the fact if I thought one was
really good or conversely if one was terrible."
Boone stressed this will be a learning process for everybody involved.
"I've tried to be real direct with them and why," he said. "I feel like we're
going to be good at it, that's the expectation. I'm sure we'll continue to
evolve with it."
New San Francisco skipper Tony Vitello, who came to the Giants from the
University of Tennessee with no professional experience as a player or coach,
said he had to remind himself earlier Wednesday that the robots might take over
at times.
"'I've got to be honest with you, one thing I was looking at is who are the
umpires tonight?" he said. "You get on Google the first thing you see is
there's going to be a robot umpire. And it was only for a millisecond but I
kind of freaked out."
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/mlb
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