PITTSBURGH —
Three times in the seventh inning of Tuesday’s game against Milwaukee, the Padres catcher’s glove swallowed a ball just outside the strike zone and then moved in with an almost imperceptible stroke, just enough that umpire CB Bucknor’s hand went up to signal a strike.
All three times, it was for strike two in what would be a three-strikeout inning Logan Allen completed in 13 pitches to finish off his major league debut.
The catcher was Francisco Mejia.
And whether Bucknor’s penchant for expanding the strike zone helped Allen as much as Mejia’s pitch framing, the improvement by Mejia in that discipline over what it was in 2018 or even at the start of this season was evident in the two games he caught against the Brewers.