Rockies veteran inadvertently challenged two pitches vs. Dodgers

In the Rockies' series finale against the Dodgers, starting pitcher Michael Lorenzen used his hat as a signal to catcher Hunter Goodman to indicate whether they wanted to challenge a play.

However, a touch or signal to the top of the hat indicates you want to challenge the pitch, and that's exactly how the home plate umpire interpreted it.

Fortunately, the curveball Lorenzen threw to Max Muncy, as shown in the clip mentioned above, just grazed the top part of the strike zone. This led to the call being overturned from a ball to a strike. However, losing a challenge on such a minor challenge early in the game could have been detrimental for the Rockies.

In the second part of the clip, it shows his challenge against Dodgers' Hyeseong Kim during the third inning, featuring a sinker that appeared high even on the telecast. The ABS challenge was deemed unsuccessful, leading to Colorado losing an early challenge on a call that had little impact on the game.

Lorenzen stated in the postgame press conference that he didn't intend to challenge the two pitches and was signaling to Goodman regarding whether they should have challenged them. He would then follow up, stating that he needs to find a better way to signal his catcher about how to challenge a pitch.

The catcher should be able to assess whether or not to challenge a call, and Goodman has been fairly reliable in this regard throughout the season. It will be interesting to see what type of signal or verbage Lorenzen will use in the future to indicate a challenge on a pitch.

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