The Los Angeles Angels losing a baseball game isn’t exactly breaking news this season. But their 3-2 loss against the White Sox has drawn a lot of attention, not because of the result, but because of a nightmare performance behind home plate by umpire Vic Carapazza. 

The box score shows a tight game. Tied 2-2 at the end of the ninth, the White Sox walked it off in the bottom of the 10th, when Colson Montgomery hit a single with the bases loaded. But the focus was not on the number of runs or the hit. Rather, the number of blunders from the plate umpire, especially toward LA star Mike Trout.

Umpire Carapazza missed 18 calls during Wednesday’s game. And out of those, 13 came against the Angels. Mike Trout alone was on the receiving end of four bad calls, making it one of the most disproportionately called games of the 2026 season so far. Unfortunately, the teams only tapped the helmet on nine occasions, which resulted in six calls overturned. The remaining nine had the players staring in disbelief and disappointment. 

Notably, this was Carapazza’s 8th game of this season. The 46-year-old umpire managed a 91.23% accuracy in the Angels vs White Sox game, which is his worst in 2026.  According to UmpScorecards, he recorded a favor of +0.46 runs for Chicago. What’s more concerning is that the total run impact of his decision was 1.38.

In a game decided by just one run in extra innings, those margins mean everything. And given the fact that 13 calls were missed against the Angels, it is easy to understand why some fans are using the word “robbed.”

Mike Trout challenged one strike call in the top of the 8th and was successful in overturning it. The same thing happened with Zack Neto. But several back-to-back strike calls were clearly outside the zone. Trout looked dejected, suffering the blunders as he failed to take his team ahead. 

However, the Angels game wasn’t a standalone example of bad umpiring. In fact, there have been too many such instances this season. 

The ABS System isn’t fixing the human error problem

The Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System was introduced in the MLB regular season to help the umpires with their decisions. But so far, the umpires have missed an average of nearly 11 calls per game. As of April 30, Baseball Savant reported that more than half of the 1,882 challenges have been overturned through ABS. 

But what about the calls that were not challenged? According to UmpScorecards, around 79% of the missed calls remain unchallenged. According to the MLB rules, each team gets two unsuccessful challenges in a nine-inning game. Because of that limit, players often hold back early and try to keep them for late-game situations. The pressure of getting it right has become so high that some teams, like the Yankees, have even set up informal kangaroo courts, fining players for wasting a challenge.

Mike Trout had the same idea when he was struck out looking at a pitch that was clearly outside the strike zone. Missing a few calls is well within the margin of human error. But making an array of blunders turns it into a lopsided game.

We have seen Hunter Wendelstedt make the same mistake earlier. He missed 18 calls during an April 11 game, and 12 of those went against the Rockies. His worst came after a week when 16 out of 22 missed calls went against the Reds.

C.B. Bucknor made headlines after he missed 20 calls in a single game on March 28. It means ABS is only helping with a few challenge calls. But it has remained largely unsuccessful in reducing human errors.

The Angels game was one such example. But it stings more since the team is in dire need of wins. With a 12-20 record in the season and 10 losses in the last 11 games, Mike Trout and the LA side could have really used fairer opportunities.