ATLANTA (AP) — Tarik Skubal views the strike zone differently than robot umpires.
“I have this thing where I think everything is a strike until the umpire calls it a ball,” Detroit’s AL Cy Young Award winner said ahead of his start for the American League in Tuesday night’s All-Star Game.
MLB has been experimenting with the automated ball-strike system in the minor leagues since 2019 and will use it in an All-Star Game for the first time this summer. Each team gets two challenges and retains the challenge if it is successful.
“Pitchers think everything is a strike. Then you go back and look at it, and it’s two, three balls off,” Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes, starting his second straight All-Star Game for the National League, said Monday. “We should not be the ones that are challenging it.”
MLB sets the top of the automated strike zone at 53.5% of a batter’s height and the bottom at 27%, basing the decision on the midpoint of the plate, 8 1/2 inches from the front and 8 1/2 inches from the back. That contrasts with the rule book zone called by umpires, which says the zone is a cube.