Ump show: MLB has a clever counter to the Yankees torpedo bats in Pittsburgh

The New York Yankees are back in the headlines thanks to the emergence of "torpedo bats," which are specially designed to promote hard contact for certain players. Perhaps the biggest beneficiary so far has been Jazz Chisholm Jr., who has a 1.162 OPS, four home runs, and eight RBI through six games.

The fervent reaction to these bats, from fans and opponents, has been a wee bit extreme. We can't really pin the Yankees' offensive explosion on the bats alone when the Brewers are serving up meatballs over the middle of the plate to everyone else they face so far this season.

In their series opener against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday, however, New York ran into a new challenge: the vaunted bad umpire.

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Yankees' torpedo bats hit brick wall with terrible strike calls in Pittsburgh

This is from the top of the first inning alone:

It's hard to rake dingers when we're calling strikes a foot outside the zone, although Mitch Keller surely isn't complaining.

Thankfully (?), things evened out in the second inning. New York poured on a few hits and pushed two across home plate before Chisholm popped out to third in his second at-bat.

Again, the discourse around these bats has far exceeded their actual impact. Aaron Judge's historic five-home run start, for example, happened with a regular barrel. It's fair to wonder if Chisholm and Anthony Volpe, the original poster child for torpedo bats, are seeing their production inflated, but all will balance out eventually. Again, most of these home runs came against lowly Milwaukee (and Nestor Cortes). Sometimes a good team hammers a bad pitcher, especially when there is so much baked-in familiarity.

Chisholm, also, is a really good ball player. Like, we don't need to pretend like his hot start is some career aberration. Of course he won't finish the campaign with a 1.000-plus OPS and 50-plus home runs like he's on track for, but Chisholm is a former All-Star on the upswing of his career at 27 years old. Him breaking out for a Yankees team in desperate need of post-Juan Soto support would not be the most shocking development.

The torpedo bats are here to stay, unless the league takes urgent (and unfounded) action. These are legal bats, totally within the scope of MLB rules. We've already seen stars break them out elsewhere, such as Philadelphia's Alec Bohm. Baseball is always evolving. These new bats are a fascinating innovation and an exciting trend, but we needn't act like it's an affront to the sancity of the game. We like home runs, don't we? The steroids era sure was entertaining. Just saying.

So, while I sit here and imagine Barry Bonds roping 600-foot moonshots with a torpedo bats, Pirates fans will bemoan another Mitch Keller stinker. Yankees fans will celebrate their plentiful star-power. Such is life.