Yankees’ José Caballero loses first robot challenge of ball/strike call
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Yankees’ José Caballero lost the first challenge taken to Major League Baseball’s so-called robot umpire, unsuccessfully appealing a strike by San Francisco Giants right-hander Logan Webb in Wednesday night’s season opener won 7-0 by New York.
Webb started the fourth inning with a 90.7 mph sinker on the upper, inner corner that was called a strike by Bill Miller, a major league umpire since 1997. Caballero tapped his helmet, and the 12 Hawk-Eye cameras of the Automated Ball-Strike System upheld Miller’s decision in a graphic shown on the Oracle Park scoreboard.
New York was ahead 5-0 at the time. Caballero drove in the first run with an RBI single in a five-run second inning against Webb, who recorded his 1,000th career strikeout in the fourth.
The automated system had been tested in the minor leagues since 2019 and was used during major league spring training in 2025 and ’26. Some managers have said they will still find ways to argue and get ejected.
Before Wednesday’s game, Yankees manager Aaron Boone spoke in support of the new system and the importance of discussing decisions on challenges with his team ahead of time.
“I hope so,” Boone said when asked if he was excited. “We’ve had a lot of dialogue at it, it’s something that we’ve poured a lot into, I’ve certainly. It’s become one of the things I’ve kind of tried to lead the charge on a little bit. Another kind of end-of-spring meeting with all the position players and catchers at the end just kind of running through different ones that came up and give my feedback on it. I’ve been very direct with them during spring as far as after the fact if I thought one was really good or conversely if one was terrible.”
Boone stressed this will be a learning process for everybody involved.
“I’ve tried to be real direct with them and why,” he said. “I feel like we’re going to be good at it, that’s the expectation. I’m sure we’ll continue to evolve with it.”
New San Francisco skipper Tony Vitello, who came to the Giants from the University of Tennessee with no professional experience as a player or coach, said he had to remind himself earlier Wednesday that the robots might take over at times.
“’I’ve got to be honest with you, one thing I was looking at is who are the umpires tonight?” he said. “You get on google the first thing you see is there’s going to be a robot umpire. And it was only for a millisecond but I kind of freaked out.”
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