Home Plate Umpire does make a difference

[Alan G]

I saw the same thing. But I don't think the first 6 runs scored by the Yankees had anything to do with Reed's strike zone. The A's starter was laying it in and the Yankees were pounding him. I thought Reed's strike zone disturbed Pettite and Appier and led them to appear exasperated, although only Pettite got really hammered.

It seemed to me that after he started calling the "lower" strike zone, he was somewhat inconsistent with other calls. Before that he had been "consistent", but was not (IMO) calling the usual ML strike zone.