Article: Never Challenge the Eye of Alejandro Kirk

[Davy Andrews]

On Thursday's spring training game against the Red Sox, the ABS challenge system gave Alejandro Kirk the platform to show off one of the game's sharpest weapons: his eyeballs.

On Thursday afternoon, the Blue Jays hosted the Red Sox in Dunedin, earning a 7-4 victory. The game featured plenty of notable events. The matchup maybe, possibly offered a preview of the team’s Opening Day lineup. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette continued to rake, as they have all spring. Ernie Clement and Davis Schneider went off for back-to-back homers, Clement on the first pitch he saw since taking a pitch to the face on Monday. “I guess I had to get a little bit of revenge there,” he said after the game. Chris Bassitt allowed two earned runs in 2/13 innigs, but more importantly, he called his own pitches on a PitchCom clipped to his belt, rather than attached to the glove. The odd placement made him look like every dad in the 2000s who owned a phone holster. Our subject for today is Alejandro Kirk, who made the most of several chances to demonstrate his mastery of the strike zone.

No one disputes that Kirk is among the game’s best framers. According to Statcast, Kirk’s 10 framing runs were the fourth-most in baseball in 2024. He also ranked 11th in 2023 and fifth in 2022. It started in the top of the first. Number two batter Nick Sogard took an 0-1 pitch that was called low, but Kirk knew better. He challenged the pitch, and the ABS system proved that he was correct by a couple of microns. The pitch had just barely nicked the bottom of the zone. It was truly an impressive an impressive display of zone awareness.

Kirk wasn’t done. Just three batters later, Bassitt got ahead of Boston catcher Carlos Narváez, then finished him off looking with a slider on the outside corner. Or at least Kirk made it look like it was the outside corner, and the umpire very definitely believed him. However, Narváez quickly challenged, and the ABS system showed that not only was the pitch a ball, it was more than two inches outside the strike zone. Kirk had absolutely stolen a strike, and he would’ve gotten away with it too if it weren’t for those meddling robots.

Have I mentioned that Kirk also demonstrates a pretty good knowledge of the strike zone when he’s hitting too? His chase rate took a step back in 2024, but it was still right around the league average. From 2021 to 2023, Kirk possessed one of the better batting eyes in the game. He showed that off as well in the bottom of the second inning, taking a 1-2 pitch from pitcher Austin Adams that Narváez was sure had hit a piece of the zone. Not so, ruled ABS. This pitch was even further off the plate than the one that Kirk had successfully (for a moment) framed earlier. The call stayed a ball, and he went on to walk.

Kirk would win one more challenge, and as fate would have it, Narváez would once again serve as the victim. With one out in the top of the fifth, Yimi García fell behind, 1-0, and fired a 98-mph fastball on the outside corner. The home plate umpire ruled it a ball, and Kirk calmly signaled for another challenge. He looked absolutely certain that the call would go his way, exuding as much confidence as it his humanly possible to exude while also patting the top of one’s head. He was right again. The pitch caught quite a bit of plate, and Narváez went on to ground out.

The final score: While catching, Kirk successfully challenged a pitch that just barely caught a millimeter or two of zone, then lost one challenge initiated by the batter because he’d framed it so well. Next, he laid off a pitch that fooled the catcher into wasting a challenge. And finally, Kirk availed himself of his second challenge from behind the plate and won it. In each situation, Kirk showed himself to have the best eye among the trio of catcher, batter, and umpire. Maybe we don’t need an ABS system or an umpire. We can just trust the eyes of Alejandro Kirk.

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