Angel Hernandez has returned behind the plate, but does not appear to have improved his craft at calling balls and strikes.
Hernandez, 61, has been out of action since April 3, due to an undisclosed medical issue.
He returned for a rehab assignment for a Triple-A game between the Charlotte Knights and Durham Bulls on Tuesday night, and the chart of his calls left much to be desired.
“Ángel Hernández’s balls and strikes calls from his rehab assignment in AAA last night… looks like he’s in mid-season form,” joked the Twitter account Codify Baseball.
Pitchers for the Bulls, the top minor league affiliate of the Rays, appeared to be particularly squeezed, with a number of their pitches that seemed to be on the edge of the strike zone getting called as balls.
Meanwhile, pitchers for Charlotte, the White Sox’ triple-A affiliate, had a number of pitches that appeared to be strikes called as balls and vice versa.
The responses to Codify Baseball’s tweet were particularly caustic.
“You’re telling me Angel Hernandez, the guy who has a history of calling some of his worst games against the Sox to the point where the team has had to file complaints on him, just so happens to be doing his rehab work with…. Their triple A team?” one Twitter user asked.
Another whipped up a graphic of several missed call “from Angel Hernandez” on an iPhone.
A third Twitter user wrote, “Glad to see he hasn’t missed a beat. Game hasn’t been that much different without him, but it sure is great to see him like he never left.”
Getting criticized for poor calls has been a hallmark of Hernandez’s tenure as an MLB umpire.