In some sports, they reward quality officiating during the regular season by inviting those officials to work postseason games (and make some nice extra $$$). That doesn’t appear to be the case with baseball. C.B. Bucknor is working the Red Sox-Angels series, despite regularly being voted by the players as the worst umpire in the majors. Some years he gets over 20% of the vote. Considering the number of major league umpires, that’s a lot.

I’m only bringing this up because Bucknor has already made two terrible calls in tonight’s game 1 matchup. The first was an obvious tag at first a good 3 feet before the runner reached the base. The second was on an errant throw from Lowell to Youk, in which Youk had to jump to catch the ball. He landed with over half a foot on the bag. Not the tip of his toes, not the edge of his cleat. Half of his foot. The runner was a good 4 or 5 feet away from the base at this point. Bucknor ruled that Youk didn’t touch the base and the runner was safe.

No runner scored in either of the innings where Bucknor blew obvious calls, but Lester did have to throw more pitches to get out of each inning, which probably means we’ll have to go to our bullpen sooner. Bucknor does not deserve to be working this game, and he’s shown why in front of a national audience tonight. The players and managers know he misses calls like these routinely, which is why they recognize him as the worst umpire more often than anyone else. So why does he get a playoff series and a bonus check for poor performance?

Tags: alds, bad calls, baseball, boston red sox, cb bucknor, umpire