Major League Baseball is introducing the Automated Balls-Strikes challenge system (ABS system) next season after growing complaints about the way balls and strikes are called. It might be a year too late for the San Diego Padres. They could have really used that system on Thursday night in their 3-1 Game 3 loss to the Chicago Cubs that ended their 2025 season. The Cubs’ win sends them to the NLDS where they will play the Milwaukee Brewers. After Jackson Merrill led off the top of the ninth inning with a solo home run to get the Padres on the board, Xander Bogaerts faced a 3-2 count and thought he had drawn an important walk to bring the tying run to the plate. The pitch was clearly below the strike zone, and Bogaerts started to walk toward first base until home plate umpire D.J. Reyburn rang him up on a called third strike. You do not even really need the K-zone to see that pitch is off the plate and low. It should have been ball four and it should have a base-runner with nobody out. That call would becom
