Baseball's new ABS challenge system is supposed to be a lifeline: two chances a game to overturn a blown ball-strike call. The Dodgers used theirs up before most fans had finished their first beer. Against the Rockies, with L.A. already up 3-0 and two runners on, Alex Call stepped in and immediately started firing off challenges on pitches from Rockies starter Gabriel Hughes. Both were confirmed strikes. Both challenges, gone, in the same at-bat.
Bad Call. Alex Call wastes both Dodgers challenges in his 1st AB in the 1st inning. 🙄 https://t.co/KLRFDSSYFl
That's the part that makes this a story instead of a footnote. It's not that Call lost one challenge — that happens constantly, hitters and catchers guess wrong on ABS all the time. It's that he lost both, on consecutive pitches, before the Dodgers had even worked through the first turn of the lineup. Every borderline call for the rest of the game — the kind that actually flips outcomes in the sixth or seventh inning — was untouchable. No safety net, no recourse, nothing.
Alex Call lost ABS challenges on consecutive pitches....in the first inning. 😬 https://t.co/AIA9qII0iT
Call has been the low-key roster piece keeping the Dodgers' outfield afloat this season, since arriving from the Nationals in a July 2025 trade. He's not a star, he's a role player stepping into a bigger role with Kyle Tucker out, and Dave Roberts has publicly backed him as someone who doesn't cost L.A. much production. This is the kind of mistake that turns a quiet, useful player into a punching bag for a night — a self-inflicted math error more than a talent problem.
Alex Call burned through both of the Dodgers' challenges on back-to-back pitches in the first inning https://t.co/d1Y5PWpRLr
The Dodgers still found a way to win the game, grinding out a narrow result to close the series, but that doesn't erase the bigger-picture problem the ABS system exposes. Challenges are a finite resource and teams are still learning how to spend them — burn both in the first inning on a hunch and you're playing the rest of the night with no appeal, no matter how egregious a later call might be. Managers and catchers are typically the ones trusted to manage that clock; letting a hitter fire twice in one at-bat is exactly the kind of decision that gets a quiet word from the dugout afterward.
Expect this to become the go-to cautionary tale anytime a broadcast explains the challenge rules going forward — 'don't be Alex Call' is already the joke writing itself. For the Dodgers, the bigger question is whether this was a one-off brain cramp or a sign they need better in-game communication about when it's actually worth burning a challenge, especially with October baseball as the goal.