Toronto Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is ready for the Automated Ball-Strike challenge system to be adopted everywhere.
After the Guerrero and the Dominican Republic had their World Baseball Classic dreams crushed by a strike call that ended the semifinal game against the U.S, the Toronto Blue Jays superstar questioned why ABS wasn’t available.
“It’s baseball. I’ll say this — if we’re going to use (ABS) this year in the regular season, why wouldn’t we use it at the WBC? Everybody knew. (The umpire) thought it was a strike, he’s human. But everybody that saw it knew what really happened,” Guerrero Jr. told Sportsnet’s Arden Zwelling.
The controversial at-bat came in the bottom of the ninth with Geraldo Perdomo facing Mason Miller. The short stop had worked himself into a full count and let the eighth pitch of the at-bat fly by, deeming it a ball. However, the umpire called the slider that missed the zone a strike and ended the game. The Dominican Republic had the tying run on third.
2026 will mark the first time ABS has been used during the MLB regular season. Each team will have two challenges per game, with an additional challenge allocated for each extra inning played if necessary. Extra-inning challenges are not eligible to be carried over between innings.
