ARLINGTON, Texas — In the ninth inning Wednesday, Rangers catcher Jonah Heim smacked a line drive to Rays shortstop Jose Caballero. The ball went into - and then out of - Caballero's glove, and Heim, it appeared, had collected his second base hit of the game.
Until the umpires called him out.
Their ruling was that Caballero caught Heim's hit for the out, and then simply dropped the ball while transferring it out of his glove to make a throw. Take a look for yourself below. At full speed, it certainly looks like a dropped catch, though slow motion reveals that Caballero closed his glove around the ball before it popped out.
In any case, it was yet another weird circumstance involving Heim and a call made (or not made) by an umpire.
Remember a week ago, on opening night?
The Rangers and Cubs were tied in the ninth inning, with runners on first and second, when Cubs hitter Miles Mastrobuoni foul-tipped the pitch from Jose Leclerc. Except the home plate umpire Chad Fairchild didn't call it a foul ball. Heim pleaded his case, while the ball rolled away. Seeing this distraction, the Cubs' Michael Busch scampered from second base to home plate for the go-ahead run.
Heim made up for it, though.
After the Rangers sent the game to extra innings, Heim hit a walkoff single in the bottom of the 10th.
Some of Heim's bad luck has apparently carried over from 2023. CJ Vogel, a college football reporter with On Texas, pieced together a video of some of Heim's recent run-ins with the umpires.
"The best rivalry in baseball: Jonah Heim vs. MLB Umpires."
Vogel's video featured two memorable Heim moments from 2023. In Game 2 of the American League Championship Series, Heim was called out on a strikeout after he foul-tipped an 0-2 pitch from Framber Valdez into the mitt of catcher Martin Maldonado. The problem was that Maldonado didn't actually catch it. The ball hit his glove, then the ground, and then Maldonado trapped it. But this wasn't noticed by the home plate umpire, and Heim was called out.
Earlier in the season, in June, Heim was fielding a throw from left-fielder Travis Jankowski when he tagged out Elvis Andrus at home plate. The play saved the Rangers from giving up a go-ahead run in the eighth inning. But on replay review, officials overturned the call, saying Heim's foot on home plate blocked Andrus' path.
Like on opening night this year, Heim got his revenge. The next night he blasted a home run and celebrated by placing his hands to his ears, imitating the headset umpires use on replay reviews.
All of this is a bit ironic, considering Heim is considered one of baseball's elite strike-stealers at catcher. In 2023, he was third in catcher framing runs, with 10, a stat that measures how effective a catcher is at getting strikes called on pitches out of the zone.