During the Astros-Red Sox game on Wednesday, something unusual happened without anyone in the game noticing.
With Houston slugger Yordan Álvarez up and Rich Hill on the mound, Álvarez was given the luxury of an extra strike, grounding out to first base on strike four after a called strike three wasn’t declared a strikeout.
The home plate umpire was Jim Wolf, and he apparently just lost track of the count even though Hill only threw five pitches in the entire at bat. However, the fact that neither Hill, nor Álvarez, nor even the broadcast booth caught the mistake is very strange.
Since Álvarez got out on his only extra pitch, the blunder didn’t have much impact outside of costing Hill another strikeout on the day. And by the time this occurred, Hill had already given up four runs, which was enough for Houston to beat Boston 6–1 on the day.
Both Hill and Wolf would be lucky that the error didn’t have more of an impact on Wednesday’s game.
