It's not the reason the Pirates were swept by the Tampa Bay Rays, but it certainly didn't help.
A handful of calls made by the umpires during the series were at times questionable to downright bad.
Andrew McCutchen especially took exception to the job saying, "Is there any accountability on that end? Over the years, I don't think so," said McCutchen, per the Post-Gazette Pirates insider Jason Mackey. "What can you do?"
Pirates manager Derek Shelton said after the game, when asked by Mackey is the umpires were retaliating for the previous game, when Shelton was ejected, "I would hope not, I mean that's not how it should go, you should call the game how it should be."
"I know our hitters had a lot of questions about pitches, we had what? Five or six called strike out looking," added Shelton.
Shelton couldn't rule it out, but he didn't, just saying he hoped it wasn't a retaliation.
Dorin Dickerson said on the Fan Morning Show Friday that he believes the umpires were making a statement to the Pirates that they are the ones in charge.
You know something is wrong with the calls when even Bryan Reynolds is reacting.
Thursday afternoon's umpire Manny Gonzalez got roasted by fans for the job he did behind the plate.
Ump Scorecards on twitter gave Gonzalez and overall accuracy score of 88 percent with an 80 percent strike call accuracy.
Nine of his 46 called strikes were "true balls."
It was part of the bad three days in Tampa for the Bucs, it may have been even worse for the umpire crew.
Robotic umpires anyone?
