It was odd because he flinched at the breaking balls away as if he was thinking about swinging, and watched every fastball like he was taking all the way.
Fried's perfect pitches are called balls while just the opposite is true (plus a couple of inches) for Nola. Pretty hard to win with that obviously unlevel playing field.
It's also unnecessarily inflating Fried's pitch count. Hang in there, Max.
I understand we're going to be stuck with this crew for awhile. Hopefully, the other umps in this group will call balls and strikes a lot more consistently and accurately than this clown.