Q: Does Major League Baseball have a review process for umpires who do poorly calling balls and strikes?
—Tom Cotton, Senoia
A: MLB reviews all balls and strikes calls made by umpires using technology that's in place in all 30 stadiums, spokesman Michael Teevan told Q&A on the News in an email.
A technology called Zone Evaluation (ZE) uses multiple camera angles from certain vantage points around the field.
The league uses ZE images to grade balls and strikes after each game and manually confirms the strike zone for every pitch before evaluating the umpire’s overall performance.
MLB then provides a breakdown to each umpire about which calls were correct and incorrect.
If league officials identify a trend with a particular umpire, they follow up with individual instruction.
MLB began reviewing data in select ballparks in 2001.
Q: California has asked for a 25 percent decrease in water consumption for its residents. What percentage decrease in consumption did Atlanta mandate during our shortage in 2007?
—Carol W. Kelly, Atlanta
A: Georgia imposed a Level 4 drought response in 2007, banning nearly all outdoor watering. Small exemptions were allowed, such as hand watering for new shrubs and trees.
Then-Gov. Sonny Perdue added another incentive by instructing the municipal water systems in 61 North Georgia counties to cut consumption by 10 percent.
Leaders in those counties were told to cut water use from the same period the year before, but state officials let local governments to decide how best to achieve the goal.
Andy Johnston wrote this column; Allison Floyd contributed. Do you have a question about the news? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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