Through MLB's first weekend, Salvador Perez and the Royals are ABS winners
Salvador Perez and the Kansas City Royals have been baseball's best at utilizing their robot challenges through the first weekend of the Automated Ball-Strike System . Perez topped all catchers by going 4-0 on challenges , while San Francisco's Heliot Ramos and Cincinnati's Eugenio Suárez were the only batters who went 2-0 — Suárez won his appeals on consecutive pitches. Three-time MVP Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels is 3-1 on challenges.
Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña Jr. was the only batter who went 0-2. Kansas City and Arizona were the only perfect teams, with the Royals 4-0 and Arizona 3-0.
Houston was 0-6 and St. Louis was 0-3. Many teams have tried to save their challenges for high-leverage situations.
“1-1 counts. Counts that are going to end the at-bat. Those are big challenge times,” said Phillies manager Rob Thomson, whose team went 4-3.
Challenges had a 53. 7% success rate through 47 games. There were 175 challenges, an average of 3.