Something's gone missing (Updated)

Was the technology a little too good?
Last week, I posted about the Devil Rays' win over the New York Yankees, and I added a bit of commentary about the "Gameday" graphic as it applied to Johnny Damon's ninth inning at-bat. I used a saved image from the "Gameday" graphic, which showed a pitch called a strike where the pitch looked like it was right over the heart of the plate--but I admitted that I had no idea whether or not the graphic corresponded closely to reality.

After the Rays beat Baltimore earlier this week, I posted a similar graphic showing how Melvin Mora was called out on a pitch that was too high to fit the strike zone. At that time, I noted that the graphic represented the situation reasonably well (if anything, the pitch was less a strike than it appeared on the graphic).

Something changed this week.


This is the graphic I clipped to show how Mora was unfairly called out on strikes.


This is a graphic I clipped tonight. See what's missing?

That's right--no more strike zone. I visited most of the other games for which a Gameday version was available, and none of them show a box representing the strike zone any longer.

That, I think, is Major League Baseball covering for its umpires.

Update: The before-and-after comparison makes clear another change that I noted later.
The top of the graphic has a mugshot of the pitcher opposite a mugshot of the batter. Below those photos and the accompanying statistics you see a horizontal space with a black background showing the location and number of pitches during previous at-bats. Note that in the more recent screenshot the pitches no longer show in color, making it tougher to figure out which pitches were called strikes and which were not. Sneaky, MLB! The umps must be giving you some grief over Gameday, eh?