MLB has its first perfect game of 2025
Photo credit: https://www.foxnews.com
Major League Baseball has its first perfect game of 2025, and it didn't come from a pitcher or any one team. Rather, it's from an umpire. During a game on April 10th between the Minnesota Twins and Kansas City Royals, home plate umpire Mark Ripperger called the second umpire's game in MLB history, since pitch tracking came into existence.
Pat Hoberg had the first one in 2022, in the World Series no less.
Ripperger called 136 pitches in the game and every single one of them was called correctly.
Umpires take a lot of heat in today's game, as every pitch is analyzed, every missed call - both on the bases and behind the plate - leads to increased pleas for robot umps.
And yet many umps, like Ripperger and John Libka two name a couple, stand above the crowd as ones who are consistently good at their jobs.
And while many feel that the ABS system should be in place for challenging balls and strikes - just as it was during Spring Training - Ripperger gives hope to those who still favour the human element of the game.
This is second umpire's perfect game of the Umpire Scorecards era, which dates back to 2015. With overall accuracy this season being at 92%, Ripperger got 10.3 more correct calls than the average ump.
Called strike accuracy is even lower, averaging in at about 88%, while called ball accuracy tends to be higher, at around 97%. Ripperger topped them both.
In 2024, Ripperger was roughly 1.3% above average in accuracy, while in 2023 that number 1.5%.
A job well done sir.
| POLL | ||
AVRIL 12 | 73 ANSWERS MLB has its first perfect game of 2025 Is Mark Ripperger a good umpire? | ||
| Yes | 23 | 31.5 % |
| No | 50 | 68.5 % |
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