The Twins have been all about using MLB’s new Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System, powered by T-Mobile, and have been part of some of the innovation’s biggest moments early in its debut season. They set a new record with it Wednesday night.
The Twins challenged pitches nine(!) times -- six times from batters and thrice from catchers -- in a 13-9 loss to the Royals. It beat out the previous single-game high for a team of six (both the Mariners and Orioles have hit that mark).
A record eight of those Minnesota challenges were overturned, including a ninth-inning, 0-0 pitch from Bailey Falter to Josh Bell that was called a strike but was then determined to have missed the zone by 0.1 inches. Bell homered on the very next pitch.
Catcher Ryan Jeffers led the Twins with four challenges, three from behind the plate and one as a hitter. He won all four of them.
The Royals tacked on two challenges of their own (one successful, one failed) Wednesday, resulting in a single-game record 11 total ABS challenges from both teams.
The previous combined single-game high of 10 also included the Twins -- and a big moment involving Bell. It was Sunday’s 8-6 Orioles (six challenges) win over Minnesota (four), which included a ninth-inning Bell at-bat that featured two impactful challenges.
Baltimore catcher Adley Rutschman turned a 3-0 pitch into a strike with a challenge, and pitcher Ryan Helsley later turned a 3-2 pitch into a strikeout with a rare challenge from the mound. Only 12 times has a pitcher been the challenging player out of 343 attempts.
Twins manager Derek Shelton took issue with the time allotted to Helsley to make the challenge. That led to an argument with the umpiring crew, and it ended with Shelton making more history for his club: He became the first manager ejected from a game for arguing about the ABS Challenge System.
"I didn’t think Helsley tapped his cap quick enough," Shelton said Sunday. "Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, but I didn’t feel he did. I feel like it’s gotta be something within the three seconds, and I didn’t think it was there. But the umpiring crew thought it was."
Wednesday’s huge number from the Twins isn’t particularly surprising. Their nine challenges skyrocketed them to the top of the league, with 22 total challenges through the first week of the season. The Yankees are in second place with 16.
Minnesota has been generally successful, too, overturning calls at a 73% clip. That’s fourth behind only the Orioles (86% on 14 challenges), Yankees (81% on 16 challenges) and Royals (75% on eight challenges).
Twins hitters have been especially aggressive, with a league-leading 12 challenges on a 75% success rate. They are the only team with a double-digit challenge rate from batters at 10.2%.
We’re seemingly seeing more ABS history every day, and Wednesday -- additionally featuring MLB’s first game-ending overturn in the Orioles’ win over the Rangers -- was quite a showing.