u/NMHacker

Five Tool 17U Don Mattingly World Series. Pretty high-level tournament.

My son's team was playing in a consolation game on Friday. They have a reliever who is typically a 1-2 inning guy. The tournament follows Pitch Smart guidelines, so he'd thrown fewer than 30 pitches on both Tuesday and Wednesday, had Thursday off, and was available.

They brought him in during a 7-4 game in the 6th inning with one out and runners on second and third. He got out of the inning without allowing a run. The plan was for him to face one batter in the 7th to stay under 20 pitches, since the team has another tournament in LA starting Tuesday, and then bring in the closer (my son).

Between innings, the umpire kept chatting with us parents and mentioned several times how much he liked fast-moving games.

Then I saw something I'd never seen before in all my years around baseball.

When the coach went to make the pitching change, the umpire refused to allow it. He actually told the coach that the current pitcher was inducing weak contact and that he should leave him in.

I've seen umpires miss calls. I've seen them argue rules. But I've never seen one try to manage a team's bullpen.

I live in Albuquerque and the Comets are playing the Isotopes this week. Is there anywhere that the Comets post their lineup card for the day like the Dodgers do on MLB app? With Mookie and Kike on rehab, we are looking to see if either will be playing starting tomorrow.