Blue Jays takeaways: The wheels came off in the third inning in Washington. Ángel Hernández loosened the bolts

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This article was published 17/08/2021 (1557 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on the Blue Jays’ 12-6 loss to the Nationals in Washington on Tuesday night:

The game got away from the Blue Jays in the bottom of the third inning, when the Nationals exploded for six runs off Alek Manoah, whose career high for runs allowed in any start had been five.

Alcides Escobar, who you may remember as the 2015 AL Championship Series MVP for Kansas City, bit the Jays again, smacking a two-run double with one out to break a 1-1 tie.

Manoah, needing to stop the bleeding right there, got ahead of all-star Juan Soto 1-and-2, then threw a great fastball over the inside part of the plate. Soto took what was clearly a strike — not even on the corner — that was called ball two. Manoah’s next pitch was a sinker up, right at the top of the zone. Ball three.

After striking Soto out twice and getting neither call, Manoah missed badly with the full-count pitch, so instead of a runner on second with two out, the Nationals had men on first and second and only one out. Back-to-back singles followed, then an errant pickoff throw by the rookie righty to score another run as the inning went off the rails.

Along with the ugly ninth inning in Seattle on Friday night and the horrific eighth on Saturday, Tuesday’s third was another inning from hell on a road trip where the Jays can now go 4-5 at best.

I genuinely believe that the overwhelming majority of major-league umpires are trying their best, and that it’s simply impossible for human beings to accurately call balls and strikes given the speed and movement on most big-league pitches. It’s why I’ve been an advocate of robot umps or an electronic strike zone for decades. But when it’s the same guy showing up over and over again, there’s a problem.

The best umpires are the ones who go unnoticed, which is why the fact that we all know the names of Ángel Hernández, C.B. Bucknor and Vic Carapazza is not a good thing. It’s not always one of those three, but also, it’s always one of those three.

Tuesday night it was Hernández putting Manoah behind the eight-ball on consecutive pitches to a very good hitter. Consistently one of the worst umpires at calling balls and strikes, and one of the best at finding ways to impose himself on a game, Hernández was up to his old tricks behind the plate and it helped Washington on the way to a huge rally.

Nothing can be done, since the only accountability for poor umpiring comes in the form of denying post-season work. Hernández isn’t even self-aware enough to realize how poor an umpire he is, having sued Major League Baseball in 2017, claiming he wasn’t promoted to crew chief or given World Series assignments because of racial discrimination (he’s Cuban). He lost the case.

Hernández is one of the worst umpires in the game, and yet there he is, dozens of times a season, costing teams games with his unmitigated awflitude.

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In the top of the eighth, while the Jays were putting together a rally to get back into the game, Hernández was at it again, calling a strike on what was clearly a ball on a 1-and-1 pitch to Bo Bichette, changing the entire complexion of the at-bat. Bichette would ground out on the next pitch to end the inning.

This column wasn’t intended to be a screed against crappy big-league umpires, but the plain truth is that the very few crappy big-league umpires stand out among a group that is expected to start out as perfect at their job and improve from there.

The best baseball league in the world deserves the best officials in the world, and to keep running out a few umpires who can’t seem to make it through a week without being awash in their own incompetence is an insult to everyone involved.

Cowboy Joe West is retiring at the end of this season. He should take Hernández, Bucknor and Carapazza with him.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star and host of the baseball podcast “Deep Left Field.” Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness