With Wednesday’s game against the New York Yankees tied 3-3, Baltimore Orioles slugger Pete Alonso stepped to the plate in the seventh inning looking to make some magic happen. For a few brief seconds, it looked as though Alonso came through. He belted a pitch deep down the left field line that was heading for the stands.
It was ruled foul, causing Alonso to exasperatedly gesture at first base. The ball was so close to the foul pole, however, that the umps initiated a crew chief review to take a closer look at the play.
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Despite one angle appearing to show the ball sailing just inside the foul pole, the ball was deemed foul. Alonso eventually struck out to end the at-bat.
After the contest, Orioles players and manager Craig Albernaz shared their thoughts on the call, asking MLB to use more technology to determine whether a ball goes fair or foul.
Alonso compared it to football, where the pylon has a camera and can determine whether a ball crosses the goal line, per ESPN.
“I think a simple fix is like football, you have the pylon camera with the plane, where it shoots right across the goal line,” Alonso said. “And I feel like, for us, we could easily have a laser or a camera that shoots straight up.”
Alonso added that he was told in order to overturn the call, the crew needed multiple camera shots that showed the ball going fair. They couldn’t find multiple angles to overturn the initial call of a foul ball.
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Albernaz urged the league to incorporate AI, or better ball-tracking data, to determine similar balls moving forward.
Long-time veteran Chris Bassitt expressed frustration that MLB doesn’t employ proper technology to determine balls that go fair or foul, per ESPN.
“That we don’t have the technology in place to actually say, ‘Hey, this was fair or foul,’ is literally crazy in 2026. It’s crazy,” said Chris Bassitt, Baltimore’s starting pitcher Wednesday.
Bassitt said he believed MLB didn’t have that technology in place because it costs money.
For all the Orioles’ complaints, however, another angle of Alonso’s ball appeared to show it just barely going foul.
The call may have played a significant role in the rest of the contest. In the eighth inning, the Yankees tacked on two runs, taking a 5-3 lead. That wound up being the final score, as the Orioles couldn’t muster up any additional offense in the late innings after Alonso’s near-homer.
