San Francisco — New York’s José Caballero thought for sure the pitch from Logan Webb had missed the strike zone, so he challenged the human umpire’s call – and made major league history in the process.
Caballero lost the first challenge taken to Major League Baseball’s so-called robot umpire, unsuccessfully appealing a strike by the San Francisco Giants right-hander in Wednesday night’s season opener that the Yankees won, 7-0.
Caballero didn’t hesitate. “Nope, I wanted to go for it,” he said.
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.
“I thought it was a little higher that what it showed,” Caballero said.
“I think it’s really good, keep everyone accountable,” he added. “It gives us a chance to really see how good (we are) with the zone or not. I wish it was the other way around, I’m trying to get the overturn call but this time I didn’t.”
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.
Jeff Chiu / AP
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.
CBSSports.com’s Mike Axisa pointed out that, “Funny enough, the next pitch was a called strike that looked even more egregiously out of the zone. Caballero did not challenge that one, though. He wasn’t going to burn New York’s two challenges on back-to-back pitches. There’s plenty of strategy with these challenges. Teams won’t just challenge anything they think went against them. The game situation is important.”
Before Wednesday’s game, Yankees manager Aaron Boone spoke in support of ABS and the importance of discussing decisions on challenges with his team ahead of time. He stressed that 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 (and) 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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