First female MLB umpire shocks fans with her call on the very first pitch

Jen Pawol, 48, became the first female to umpire a Major League Baseball game when she called the game between the Atlanta Braves and Miami Marlins at Truist Park in Atlanta on Sunday.

Pawol spent about eight years umpiring professional baseball in the minor leagues before becoming the first woman since 2007 to call balls and strikes for a spring training game in February, the third woman in history to do so.

'I think all umpires "below average" at their jobs should be abolished.'

Loud cheers greeted Pawol at the start of the game, and while there exists obvious controversy surrounding a woman umpiring a men's sport, it was only after the first pitch was thrown that the criticism truly began.

Braves pitcher Joey Wentz threw the first pitch of the game well inside to Marlins infielder Xavier Edwards, but Pawol called it a strike anyway. The 93-mph pitch was so off the plate that Fox Sports announcer Brandon Gaudin remarked, "Joey Wentz likes that first call from Jen Pawol."

In reaction to the clip on X, fans provided ruthless commentary about Pawol giving "one of the worst" calls in MLB history, while at the same time "ruining" baseball.

However, it's a long nine innings in an MLB game, and when pitch-tracking stats for Pawol were released following the game, fans got to see exactly how the new umpire fared when compared to her colleagues.

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X page BallsAndStrikes was the first source to report on Pawol's performance, showing that she missed 13 calls total: five favoring the Marlins and eight favoring the Braves.

When it came to a complex breakdown provided by Umpire Scorecards, Pawol's overall accuracy was revealed to be 93%, with an overall consistency of 93%. Both numbers are just 1% below the MLB average for umpires.

Pawol's called-ball accuracy was two percentage points below the league average at 95%, while her called-strike accuracy was 87%, one point below the league average.

Fans reacted to the stats on X with remarks "not bad" and "she did fine."

What the data truly reveals about MLB umpires is not that it matters what gender the official is, but rather that fans are not happy with umpiring in the major leagues overall.

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Umpire Jen Pawol during a game between the Miami Marlins and Atlanta Braves. Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images

"I think all umpires 'below average' at their jobs should be abolished," baseball analyst Gary Sheffield Jr. told Blaze News. "I don't care if they're male, female, or flew in from space on a ship."

Sheffield's sentiment is shared by many fans who are calling for MLB to permanently institute an automated ball-strike challenge system that was used during the 2025 MLB All-Star Game.

The ABC system was well received and executed during the game, with multiple calls garnering a challenge from players that changed the course of the game.

Detroit Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal — pitching for the American League that night — said that while he did not intend to make use of the system, he was happy when a ball call was overturned following his challenge in the first inning.

“It's coming," Skubal said back in July, per the Athletic. "Whether players like it or not, it's going to come, so might as well get used to it."

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