It seems like the balk is having a moment in Major League Baseball right now. First it was Chris Sale who was furious over one, then Braxton Ashcraft found himself at the center of another bizarre balk controversy, and now Pete Crow-Armstrong has joined the party. Except there was one key difference.
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Unlike Sale and Ashcraft, he wasn’t angry because an umpire was being too strict. Instead, he thought the four umpires had missed an obvious balk right in front of them. And he was mad at it, so mad that he was dangerously close to being ejected in the sixth inning.
“Wild scene in the D’backs-Cubs game,” Griffin S. DeMarrais posted a 34-second clip on X. “PCA needed to be held back by the third base coach after the umpires determined Eduardo Rodríguez did not balk.”
And you best believe the scene was wild.
The Cubs needed one more win against the Arizona Diamondbacks to secure the series, and the game remained scoreless through the first five innings. In an attempt to change the scoreline, PCA recorded a double in the sixth. Even though Seiya Suzuki and Alex Bregman retired, he advanced to third.
Michael Busch then stepped to the plate with two outs and a runner on third. D-backs starter Eduardo Rodríguez noticed the runner attempting to steal home and threw a quick pitch. Catcher James McCann was already on his feet with the ball in his hand, forcing Crow-Armstrong to retreat to third.
But even before he reached the bag, Crow-Armstrong had his hands spread out to either side in frustration. Apparently, Rodríguez had switched his motion at the start of his delivery and changed the momentum as he released the ball. PCA immediately looked toward the umpires, expecting the balk call. But it never came.
The four umpires did gather to discuss the play, but then they ruled that Rodriguez had not balked. This is when Crow-Armstrong’s frustration boiled over.
Cubs third-base coach Quintin Berry literally had to escort him back to third base after he nearly charged the umpire for not calling a balk on the pitcher, but it was clear that PCA never got over the missed call.
“I saw four umpires miss a pretty obvious play,” Crow-Armstrong told reporters postgame. “They’re out there every day, just like we are. Their one job is to get calls right, and if they get it wrong, they’re supposed to talk about it and figure it out and get it right. They didn’t.”
But the real burn is what happened after. Sure, the call was not reviewable, but the umpires did review it after the game. Crew chief Alfonso Márquez then confirmed what the Cubs already knew.
“We just didn’t see it,” he said. “After looking at the video, it looked like [Rodriguez] stepped off.”
Even Counsell couldn’t put a lid on his frustration after the game, saying:
“It’s obvious to everybody on TV. The umpires said [Rodriguez] did not disengage from the rubber. He disengaged from the rubber in his windup. Tough call for the home-plate and second-base umpire. Easy call for the first- and third-base umpire.”
If a balk had been called, it would have awarded the runner, in this case Pete Crow-Armstrong, one base, allowing the Cubs to take a 1-0 lead. Instead, Rodríguez wrapped up the sixth and went on to earn the win, allowing two hits and three walks while striking out nine over seven scoreless innings.
For PCA, the frustration was understandable. He might be already unhappy withhis own performance throughout the three-game series, going 1-for-12 with three strikeouts, including two against Diamondbacks ace Eduardo Rodriguez. With the NL Central race tightening, he also knew the Cubs had little time left to close the gap on the Milwaukee Brewers.
The D-backs won 2-0 to clinch the series against the visitors, adding to the disappointment of an already frustrating road trip for the Cubs.
Cubs’ anguish goes beyond the final score lines
Chicago is second in the NL Central with a 76-58 record and occupies the top Wild Card spot with a four-game cushion. Despite that, the Cubs have lost both series during their recent road trip, and beyond the scores, a few incidents have only fueled their frustration.
The Cubs first went to Seattle and lost the series 1-2 against the Mariners, but during the very first game, they suffered a controversial decision from the umpire. Matthew Boyd tried a pickoff attempt during the fifth inning, but the umpire called a balk on him for not stepping directly toward the base he was throwing to.
“It’s a situation where the umpire got fooled and made up a call because he got fooled. It’s not a balk. Flat out. No other umpire is calling that a balk,” Counsell said during the postgame after Brennan Miller ejected him for arguing the call.
The Cubs’ trip to Arizona brought an even more serious controversy. During the series opener, D-backs starter Merrill Kelly accused the third-base coach of stealing signs and relaying them to the batters, particularly the left-handers.
The two teams had a heated argument, and the managers were involved as well. However, Arizona skipper Torey Lovullo got to the truth after talking to MLB, and he apologized to Counsell for the disagreement they had. Counsell, in response, only shared positive words about Lovullo.
While the controversy appeared to be behind them, the missed balk call created a new issue.
“I think they find new ways to screw something up every day,” Pete Crow-Armstrong said, clearly still unable to move past the call and the defeat, but there’s hardly anything that can be done now.
Hence, the Chicago Cubs will try to focus on their homestand as they host the Cincinnati Reds next. Nevertheless, the balk saga is hardly limited to just Chicago.
The balk controversies just keep coming
PCA’s frustration came at the exact opposite end of the spectrum of the two more recent balk controversies in the league. One involved Chris Sale and another Braxton Ashcraft.
Sale was called for a balk against the Yankees after failing to properly declare his intention to pitch from the windup with a runner on third. The technical call allowed a run to score, and Sale was furious enough about it the next day to be ejected before the game. Ashcraft, too, faced a similar sort of situation with the Pirates.
He had declared that he was pitching from the windup before Fernando Tatis Jr.’s at-bat, but failed to make the declaration again before Jake Cronenworth’s plate appearance. That resulted in another run-scoring balk.
Well, in all three cases, the same rule is creating different issues.