The Chicago Cubs are in firm possession of the top NL Wild Card spot. While Craig Counsell and Co. may have dreams of winning the NL Central, it's unlikely. Milwaukee entered the day with a 94% chance of winning the division, per FanGraphs. Meanwhile, the Cubs have a 92 percent chance of making the playoffs.
Milwaukee's 6.5-game lead isn't insurmountable, but the Cubs chances are slim, especially when calls go against them. Chicago had a chance to sweep the Arizona Diamondbacks with a victory on Wednesday. Instead, they lost 2-0, thanks to a dominant outing from Eduardo Rodriguez. The snakes ace was never really threatened through seven innings, though Chicago's best chance of scoring came with Crow-Armstrong on third base. A would-be balk should've provided the Cubs first run. Instead, the lack of a call (or use of instant replay) was the talking point postgame.
Umpire Alfonso Marquez's crew failed to recognize an obvious balk that should've given the Cubs the lead.
— Umpire Auditor (@UmpireAuditor) August 27, 2026
PCA was furious about the call and had to be held back.
A couple innings later, Marquez made his worst called strike of the game -- a pitch that missed high to PCA.
Cubs… pic.twitter.com/5akAo6T2cn
Pete Crow-Armstrong, Cubs irate about missed balk call
PCA was furious in the moment and rightly so. He had the best view of Rodriguez's would-be balk, which would've forced in a run. Rather, the umpires conferred and opted against it, even though Rodriguez was in the middle of his windup when he stepped off the mound. None of it mattered. While it helps that those same umpires admitted their error after the game, Crow-Armstrong and Counsell weren't so quick to forgive.
“I saw four umpires miss a pretty obvious play,” Crow-Armstrong said. “They're out there every day, just like we are. Their one job is to get calls right, and if they get it wrong, they're supposed to talk about it, figure it out, and get it right. And they didn't.”
Crew chief Alfonso Márquez on missed balk call in Cubs-Diamondbacks game, via @MegMontemurro:
— Underdog MLB (@UnderdogMLB) August 26, 2026
"We just didn’t see it. After looking at the video [postgame], it looked like he stepped off."
The play is not reviewable.pic.twitter.com/twamk4c0cj
It doesn't help that Crow-Armstrong made his case against a balk just last week. That call was made on Cubs starting pitcher Matthew Boyd, who was also on the bump Wednesday night.
"I don't know how you miss somebody starting their motion, and then stopping it and stepping off,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I just don't know."
Counsell backed his club up when asked about the missed balk, too, saying "they flat-out missed it." While Counsell expressed some understanding in regards to why the second base umpire couldn't have judged the balk, the same cannot be said of first and third base, which had an obvious angle proving they made the wrong decision.
MLB needs to expand instant replay to include balks
While MLB has expanded instant replay to include the ABS system and calls on the basepaths, balks are not included. Rather, balks remain a judgement call by either the crew chief or his assistants, which was the primary issue on Wednesday night.
A balk is tough to explain on paper, but everyone knows what it looks like live. Here is the legal definition, per the MLB rulebook: "A balk occurs when a pitcher makes an illegal motion on the mound that the umpire deems to be deceitful to the runner(s). As a result, any men on base are awarded the next base, and the pitch (if it was thrown in the first place) is waved off for a dead ball."
There are many, many plays that can be reviewed in modern day MLB, including HBP, whether a hit is fair or foul, home runs, catches in the outfield, plays at home plate, stolen bases, etc. Balks may be subjective in the eyes of many players, but on a decision as obvious as this one, another set of eyes would've been ideal.
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