Dodgers News: Yasmani Grandal Details Frustrations With Home Plate Umpire

From watching the Houston Astros score all three of their runs with two outs to getting no-hit by Mike Fiers, the Los Angeles Dodgers endured a third consecutive frustrating game against an American League West opponent.

Dodgers manager Don Mattingly likened the no-hit loss to bad cake and Carl Crawford said he was going to avoid ESPN’s SportsCenter for the night. Yasmani Grandal however, was much more frustrated in what he believes has been a trend with Friday’s home plate umpire John Tumpane, according to Pedro Moura of the OC Register:

This whole season I’ve been fighting that guy. It just seems like every time he’s behind home plate, for some reason, I’m getting calls outside of the strike zone. I study my umpires, too. I’m not only going behind the plate thinking how tough a strike zone this guy has. I know their names. I go and study them. I know the exact strike zones they got. It’s one of those frustrating things where you don’t really know what it is he’s going to call on you.

Grandal acknowledged he wasn’t necessarily in position to argue with Tumpane, but wondered what could have been:

But, you know, whatever. It’s just one of those days where you can’t really think about it too much. I was trying to figure out a way of knowing what his strike zone was to me, but you can’t really start battling him out there. My third at-bat, I had to say something: All of the sudden, instead of being a 3-1 count, it’s a 2-2 count, so he’s putting me in a bad spot. At the same time, you had two other at-bats where you could’ve done something.”

Grandal struck out looking in his first at-bat, which came with no outs in the second inning after Andre Ethier worked a leadoff walk. The Dodger catcher fouled off Fiers’ first offering and third pitch before laying off one in the dirt. A Fiers curveball then caught Grandal looking.

Grandal hit back to Fiers on a 2-1 pitch with two outs in the fourth inning. Grandal’s final at-bat of the night ended with him chasing a high fastball after taking issue with the aforementioned called strike two.

On the season Grandal is batting .277/.383/.474 with 15 home runs, 44 RBIs, 142 wRC+, 50 walks and 70 strikeouts over 93 games.