Blue Jays-Braves game ends on ABS challenge when umpire blows call
You didn’t need a computer to predict that, at some point in 2026, an MLB game would end with an umpire’s call being overturned by a Hawk-eye camera.
Thursday, it happened.
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With two outs in the ninth inning, umpire Ryan Wills called a ball on Atlanta Braves pitcher Luis Vargas’ two-strike offering to Blue Jays batter Josh Rivera.
The Braves’ catcher, Archer Bookman, disagreed with the call. He tapped his helmet, signaling a challenge. The game paused briefly, and the automatic-ball strike graphic showed fans at CoolToday Park what Bookman suspected.
Vargas’ pitch was strike three, just at the upper limit of Rivera’s strike zone. The game was over.
The call was overturned. The Braves won, 9-5. The Blue Jays’ bases-loaded threat was gone before you could say “ABS.”
MLB announced in September 2025 that the Automated Ball Strike challenge system was approved via the league’s competition committee.
Tested in the minor leagues since 2022, and in MLB spring training games last year, the challenge system is a compromise between “robot umpires” and the century-old tradition of human umpires calling variable strike zones.
When MLB announced the change, it emphasized that challenges added only “about 57 seconds of added time” to each spring training game. The Braves’ game-ending challenge might have subtracted much more than a minute, had the Blue Jays been allowed to continue batting and extend their ninth-inning rally.
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