Umpire C.B. Bucknor’s bad week continued on Wednesday when he left a game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers after a foul ball hit him flush in the face mask.
Tampa Bay’s Nick Fortes fouled a 100-mph fastball from Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski straight back. The ball struck Bucknor, who immediately turned and dropped to his knees.
The Brewers’ training staff checked on Bucknor before he left American Family Field. Chad Fairchild, who had been working as the first-base umpire, took over behind the plate.
Bucknor’s troubles began Saturday when the Cincinnati Reds and Boston Red Sox challenged eight of his six ball/strike calls. Six were overturned by Major League Baseball’s new ABS challenge system, including back-to-back strike three challenges by Reds slugger Eugenio Suárez that delighted the crowd. At one point, Bucknor’s chin dropped to his chest.
Bucknor, who has been an MLB umpire since 1996, ejected Red Sox manager Alex Cora after calling Trevor Story out on a check swing. The call ended the eighth inning with two runners on base and the Red Sox trailing by one run.
“He has one job to do. It wasn’t his best day,” Cora said about Bucknor after the game.
Bucknor, 63, found himself in another swirl of controversy as the first-base umpire on Tuesday. Jake Bauers of the Brewers reached base after Rays shortstop Ben Williamson made a throwing error, and Bucknor called Bauers out for failing to touch first base.
The replay clearly showed that Bauers had stepped on the bag, and the call was reversed.
“Yeah, grateful for that,” Bauers told reporters about the replay review. “I don’t know what happened. Just thankful to get on base and thankful to come around and score.”
While it is unclear why Bucknor missed the call at first base, the rash of overturned ball/strike calls is emblematic of the adjustments umpires and players are making to the automated ball/strike challenge system.
From 1995 to 2005, the MLB rule book defined strikes as the area over home plate from the midpoint between the shoulders and the top of the pants, down to the bottom of the knees. ABS, however, defines the top of the zone as 53.5% of a player’s height, and the bottom of the zone is 27% of the player’s height.
ABS uses tracking technology — 12 Hawk-Eye cameras — to determine the precise location of a pitch relative to a batter’s specific strike zone. The cameras measure balls and strikes from a two-dimensional plane set in the middle of home plate.
Challenges can be made by the catcher or batter, who tap their head to indicate they want an ABS verdict. In the first few days of the 2026 season, catchers turned 59 of 92 challenges (64.1%) into favorable rulings. Batters were less successful, turning 33 of 78 challenges into favorable rulings.
In 2003 and 2006, Sports Illustrated surveys of active MLB players declared Bucknor as the worst umpire in MLB. A 2010 survey of players by ESPN also ranked Bucknor last.
The post C.B. Bucknor’s week gets worse: Umpire leaves game with injury days after ABS and replay reversed his calls appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
