'She keeps getting better and better': Umpire Jen Pawol stands tall in first MLB ABS game

Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY Sat, April 18, 2026 at 2:32 AM UTC

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'She keeps getting better and better': Umpire Jen Pawol stands tall in first MLB ABS game

WASHINGTON – Jen Pawol was behind the plate for her first major league game in the automated balls and strikes challenge system era. And the first woman to serve as an ump in a Major League Baseball game stood her ground against the so-called robots.

Pawol called balls and strikes for the San Francisco Giants-Washington Nationals game Friday, April 17 and withstood a pair of challenges from Giants catcher Daniel Susac, with a pair of ball calls upheld quickly by the ABS system.

By the third inning, the Giants were out of challenges, while the Nationals successfully appealed a pair of calls during San Francisco’s 10-5 victory.

To be sure, this was a solid standoff early in this ABS era.

Entering Friday’s game, players were successful on 54% of their challenges to umpires, and the typical game averaged 4.05 challenges. Pawol saw exactly four challenges and won two of them.

Of course, ABS is relatively old news for those umpiring in Class AAA in recent years, where ABS was first deployed on a trial basis.

Pawol is technically still in the Class AAA ranks. She is on MLB’s list of call-up umpires who are based in Class AAA yet work major league games as fill-ins in the event of injuries, illnesses, vacations, or other forms of absence by the 76 full-time umps.

And her strong performance was no surprise to Susac, who caught several games at Class AAA that Pawol umped. As Susac assumes more of the Giants' catching duties as incumbent Patrick Bailey struggles at the plate, Friday was a big game for both of them.

"In my opinion, she keeps getting better and better," Susac tells USA TODAY Sports. "And I thought she did a really good job. She’s always great to have back there. We always have a good conversation, especially at the start of games and I thought she did a great job tonight."

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Pawol debuted as an MLB fill-in in 2025 and on Aug. 10 became the first woman to call balls and strikes for a major league game. She called six games behind the plate last season and, according to the umpire tracking website Umpire Scorecards, maintained a 92.9% accuracy rate.

Susac tried and failed twice in the early innings, challenging a full-count ball call to Luis Garcia Jr. He was off by an inch and the Giants were out of challenges by the third inning.

"The second one, I probably had a little more emotion to it. Probably knew it was a ball, but wanted to get one there," he says.

Nationals third baseman Brady House successfully challenged a strike call in the bottom of the eighth, while a strike call in the top of the ninth was successfully overturned to a ball.

In the meantime, Pawol punched out Nationals slugger James Wood twice on called third strikes and did the same to Giants first baseman Rafael Devers in the seventh. Both retreated to the dugout rapidly.

While the more in-depth scorecards of Pawol’s first big league foray behind the plate in 2026 will have to wait, she withstood the rigors of ABS just fine: Two wins, two losses, a little better than average.

And another step toward making the notion of a woman calling balls and strikes in a big league game a little more unremarkable.

"It’s a good way that she blends in," says Susac. "She’s done a great job and she keeps getting better, which is awesome to see."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Giants catcher Daniel Susac loses both ABS challenges vs ump Jen Pawol

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Source: “AOL Sports”