CARY, N.C. -- Debinha scored in the fourth minute and the North Carolina Courage went on to beat the Chicago Red Stars 4-0 on Sunday for their second straight National Women's Soccer League title.

Jessica McDonald, Crystal Dunn and Sam Mewis added goals for the Courage, which won the NWSL Shield for the third straight year with a league-best 15-5-4 regular-season record. The Courage beat Reign FC 4-1 in extra time in the semifinals.

The Red Stars had a six-game winning streak heading into the final, including a 1-0 victory over the Portland Thorns in the semifinal.

Debinha's rebound shot got past Red Stars goal keeper Alyssa Naeher to open scoring early before McDonald's header off a feed from Lynn Williams in the 26th minute. After Dunn scored in first-half stoppage time, Mewis added a goal off a long ball from Abby Dahlkemper in the 61st.

- Hays: Courage leave no doubt with NWSL championship rout

North Carolina's four goals were the most in an NWSL title match.

It was the third time the Courage and Red Stars had met in the playoffs. The Courage also won the first two and did not give up any goals.

Debinha was named the game's MVP, the first Brazilian to win it.

The game capped an eventful week for the league.

Chicago's Sam Kerr was named the league's Most Valuable Player for this season after scoring a record 18 goals in just 21 games. The Australian forward was absent for part of the season because of the Women's World Cup.

It was Kerr's second league MVP award, she also won in 2017 while with Sky Blue.

"Eighteen goals doesn't just come from one player so thank you to my teammates. I love playing for Chicago," Kerr said. "I love the girls, I love the team, and they allow me to be the best player I can be."

The Reign's Vlatko Andonovski was named the league's Coach of the Year after leading the Reign to the playoffs after a spate of injuries and the World Cup absences of several key players, including U.S. star Megan Rapinoe.

Andonovski is expected to be named the new coach of the U.S. national team at a news conference on Monday in New York. He replaces Jill Ellis, who led the United States to back-to-back World Cup titles.

The league this week also announced an expansion team in Louisville, Kentucky, to start play in 2021, as rumors swirled about additional expansion in the nine-team NWSL for next season.

Sunday's game was the last for Courage midfielder Heather O'Reilly. The former national team star is retiring from pro soccer and joining the staff of the women's team at North Carolina.

O'Reilly retired from the national team back in 2016, finishing with 231 caps and 47 goals, along with the 2015 World Cup trophy and three Olympic gold medals. She's also got an FA Cup from her time with Arsenal and two College Cup trophies from her time at North Carolina.

A sellout crowd of 10,227 attended the championship at Sahlen's Stadium.

Another wild weekend in the Premier League saw Arsenal's failings on and off the field laid bare, Liverpool's title credentials enhanced yet again and Leicester show they're the real deal after scoring nine at Southampton. We get you caught up on the action with the Weekend Review.

JUMP TO: The end of Emery and Xhaka? | VAR getting worse | Liverpool's mentality monsters | Tottenham's right-back problem | Lampard right on Pulisic | Southampton got away with 9-0 | Leicester title contenders? | Martial lets United focus on midfield | Norwich's injury woes | Luckiest moment of the weekend

Is this the end of Emery and Xhaka?

The margins are fine in football. Unai Emery was one abysmal VAR decision (on which, more later) from a second win in a row, a hard-fought and restorative three points to follow the win against Vitoria Guimaraes in the Europa League, after the horribly limp loss to Sheffield United last Monday. It's also easy to forget that Arsenal didn't actually lose to Crystal Palace.

But Sunday's 2-2 draw felt like the day something snapped among the Arsenal fans, of course not helped by Granit Xhaka. Everyone realises that being booed by your own supporters is unpleasant, humiliating and in an ideal world wouldn't happen at all. But Xhaka's reaction was absurd, immature and self-defeating.

It's not so much the cupped ear or the expletives as he stalked off down the tunnel that are objectionable. Those could be understandable, if not really excusable. But deliberately slowing down as he walked off, when his team had let a two-goal lead slip and were chasing the game, was unforgivable and suggested he was more concerned with making a petty point against some people who were being mean to him, than his own team winning.

- Arsenal ratings: Captain Xhaka 4/10 for tantrum
- Emery: Dropping Ozil backed by club

This comes back to Emery, too. He did, after all, appoint Xhaka as the first of his five captains, the fifth of whom was Mesut Ozil, now ostracised from the first team.

More tangible than who he chooses for a ceremonial role are results. Arsenal have won two of their last eight, and stretching back to the dreadful end of last season which cost them a Champions League spot, they have won six of their last 17 and taken 23 points from an available 51.

Which would just about be acceptable if there was any sense of a style coming through, of progress being made, a new identity forged. But there's none of that. It wouldn't be a surprise if Emery is dismissed in the next couple of weeks.

VAR: worse than anyone imagined

It's pretty remarkable just how much of a mess the Premier League have managed to make of VAR. It was bad -- really bad -- before this weekend, but now it's gone completely haywire. After some of the decisions overturned this weekend, the "high bar" we were told that would be applied has now been lowered to shoelace level: it feels a bit like a restaurant dress code suddenly changing from white tie and tails to Speedos and slippers.

Over the games this weekend we've seen Everton, heading for victory against Brighton, penalised because Michael Keane might have trodden on Aaron Connolly's foot; Norwich concede a spot kick against Manchester United that even Ole Gunnar Solskjaer didn't think was a penalty; and Arsenal lose out on three points when Calum Chambers was seemingly punished for being fouled.

- VAR in the Premier League: Ultimate guide

It almost feels like VAR is a truculent child, who after being told it wasn't changing enough decisions, suddenly just said: "Well, let's see how you like THIS."

As it's being applied at the moment, VAR has turned English football into a chaotic farce, impossible to have any faith in, virtually unwatchable because this malevolent cloud is hanging over everything.

The stated aim at the start of the season was for VAR to improve the ratio of correct refereeing decisions from 82% to 95%. The question then was whether the potential disruption would be worth the extra 13%, but now not only does that figure feel like ludicrous optimism, we're going the other way.

Liverpool's mentality monsters do it again

The encouraging thing for anyone who wants Liverpool to win the league is the variety of ways they're winning games. It felt like they took conceding that first goal against Spurs as a personal affront, which they aggressively kicked back against: it's arguably Tottenham's best achievement of the season that they held out against the siege (for the most part thanks to Paulo Gazzaniga) until the 52nd minute when Jordan Henderson equalised, and then only lost via a penalty.

"Twenty-eight points is good but you only have to think what would have happened if we had lost today, what the question would have been," said Jurgen Klopp afterwards. "We have to be focused on all the games, next one Arsenal, then Aston Villa, then Genk, then Manchester City."

That City game is only two weeks away now. Can't wait.

- Ogden: Mane more valuable than Salah
- Liverpool ratings: 8/10 for African stars
- Tottenham ratings: Eriksen, Alli only 5/10

Right-back is Tottenham's latest big problem

It's an indication of how bad their season has been so far that a 2-1 defeat counts as progress, but Tottenham did seem much better against Liverpool than they have been over recent weeks. This despite some curious selection decisions (not starting Tanguy Ndombele and picking Danny Rose over Ben Davies were the primary head-scratchers) and the ongoing calamity that is Serge Aurier.

It was very "on brand" of Aurier to win the ball off Sadio Mane -- twice -- and then clumsily give away a penalty, and it further emphasised that not signing a right-back was one of the biggest mistakes Spurs made in the summer. Their options in that position are Aurier, always liable to pull this sort of stunt, the lightweight Kyle Walker-Peters and Juan Foyth, a centre-back shoe-horned onto the flank.

Lampard vindicated in Pulisic treatment

As it turns out, Frank Lampard knew what he was doing in his management of Christian Pulisic. The USMNT's golden boy looked increasingly despondent with every game he wasn't in the starting XI in recent weeks, but his grin after the hat trick in the 4-2 win at Burnley was wide and heart-warming.

"He had a week's break this summer," said Lampard. "He arrived for a big price and wanted to come straight back in, but at the same time, why am I going to throw him in?"

- Pulisic Watch: Hat trick hero's moment comes
- Chelsea ratings: Pulisic treble earns perfect 10

Why indeed. Pulisic will be smart enough to know this won't cement his place in the side for the rest of the season, though: the beauty of this Chelsea squad is they have four top-class wingers, ensuring that rotation doesn't necessarily mean weakening his side.

For that to work it requires players being flexible enough to adapt to not playing every week: if Pedro, Willian and Callum Hudson-Odoi all follow Pulisic's lead, this could be a sensational season for Chelsea, who have now won seven straight in all competitions.

Did Southampton get away with only losing 9-0?

It could've been worse. It feels absurd to suggest that a team losing 9-0 actually got away relatively lightly, but Leicester took 25 shots at St Mary's on Friday night, 15 of which were on target, which doesn't even take into account the low cross that Jonny Evans narrowly missed with his toe, open goal waiting, in the closing stages.

Statistically, that's a little better than how many shots on target it usually takes Leicester to score a goal this season (before the game they had 16 from 31 on target), but statistics don't take into account the mental state of a team that is 5-0 down at half-time and is staring down the barrel of double figures by the hour mark.

And that's the real danger of this result. The driving rain didn't help, but as this monsoon of goals swept into the Southampton net, Ralph Hasenhuttl looked genuinely traumatised, slightly unable to comprehend a) what was happening in front of him and b) that ultimately it was his fault. He did take responsibility afterwards, and by all accounts his position is not in danger, but he has an immense task on his hands to just get his players' heads right now.

If anyone was in doubt whether the Saints were in a relegation battle before, they surely aren't now.

- Leicester equal EPL record and other mega scores
- Social media reaction: "It's... Jamie Vardy"

Are Leicester title contenders?

What of Leicester, though? They finish the weekend in third, and while Liverpool and Manchester City are probably too strong for them to be genuine title contenders, Brendan Rodgers' side aren't far off. He's done a sensational job since arriving in March and at the moment it would probably be a surprise if they didn't take one of the Champions League spots.

Martial's form means United can turn to their midfield

Manchester United need another forward in January, but if Anthony Martial can stay fit then suddenly that drops down their list of priorities. Midfield help is probably more urgent: even if Ole Gunnar Solskjaer praised Fred, Andreas Pereira and Scott McTominay after the 3-1 win over Norwich, but the latter gave away a goal after carelessly losing possession and the former nearly did the same with a slack pass in the first-half.

Paul Pogba will be out until December and his ankle problem has now flared up enough times for it to be a longer term concern, while who knows whether they will even want Nemanja Matic back in the team when he returns to fitness.

Even if Martial can avoid injury they need at least one more forward, but a combination of him scoring goals and the frailty in the middle means it's not United's biggest concern at present.

- Miller: Rashford-Martial-Jame bring optimism
- United ratings: James' stand-out game earns 8/10

Norwich's injury woes get worse

Norwich will laugh at United's injury problems, though. Daniel Farke's side were already without six players before Sunday's game, but four more were struck down during it, with at least two of Emi Buendia, Tim Krul and Ibrahim Amadou only finishing the game because all three substitutes had been used, while Jamaal Lewis went off having complained of illness and a high temperature.

They already had a tough task trying to stay in the Premier League, but to try it without half their squad makes it almost impossible.

Luckiest moment of the weekend

"The decision and why that happened is very difficult to understand. We were in control at that moment and it completely changed the game."

Usually it's wise to dismiss any suggestion from a manager that a single refereeing decision cost his team the game, but in this case you can't disagree with Marco Silva, after Everton were denied at least two, probably three points, depending on how much you blame them for conceding another after the penalty awarded to Brighton.

"Maybe we got a bit lucky," said Graham Potter, which translated from manager speak actually means "boy, did we get away with one there."

Five days after the truce between the BCB and the striking players, not everything seems to be right in Bangladesh cricket, especially when it comes to Shakib Al Hasan. After leading the strike, Shakib hasn't turned up for the national team's training sessions on two out of three days so far.

The BCB hasn't offered much by way of explanation for Shakib's absence, except conveying coach Russell Domingo's message that Shakib had been left out of Sunday's practice match as he wanted to look at other players. But Shakib's name was, reportedly, in the list of players expected to attend.

In any case, that isn't all there is to the story.

In an interview with Bengali daily Prothom Alo, BCB president Nazmul Hassan has said that some players - he named Shakib specifically - could skip the upcoming India tour, for which the team is scheduled to leave on Wednesday. Mohammad Saifuddin has already been ruled out due to a back injury while Tamim Iqbal has opted out to be with his pregnant wife.

ALSO READ: How Shakib stepped up to fill a Mashrafe-sized hole

"I am quite sure that they [the players] won't go, and they will only inform us when we have nothing to do about it," Hassan said in the interview. "I don't know. I have called Shakib today. Let's see what he says. It might be others too. I don't know. But I had information that they won't go.

"Now things have quickly changed [vis-a-vis the strike]. They didn't think it would all change so quickly. I am not saying this after hearing it from a trusted source. If they say on October 30 that they won't go, what will we do? We have to change the entire combination. Where will I get a captain from? You tell me what will I do with them?"

To complicate matters further, the BCB has called Shakib's recent sponsorship deal with Grameenphone "unlawful". Hassan has said that the board had specifically told the players not to sign contracts with any telecom company. "We told the players not to do any deals with telecom companies, so that they can participate in the tender [for team sponsorship] next year. Can Shakib do this unlawful thing knowing everything? Should I allow them to do just about anything?

"Look at the timing too. I won't get the telecom companies in the January tender. Even if they do come, it will be for a lower price. Who is getting hurt in this? Only one player is profiting, but what about my team?"

Shakib has been sent a show-cause notice to explain his side of the story, and there might be an update later today when the Bangladesh squad attends its final training session in Mirpur, where they will play a practice match among themselves. Will Shakib be around for that?

Mitchell Starc is set to miss the second T20I against Sri Lanka at the Gabba on Wednesday, having opted out of the contest to attend his brother Brandon's wedding. Queensland's Billy Stanlake has emerged as the frontrunner to replace him at his home venue. However, hot on his heels is New South Wales quick Sean Abbott, who joined the squad in Brisbane as a replacement for the injured Andrew Tye.

If Abbott does get the nod over Stanlake, it's his death-bowling skills that might tilt the balance in his favour.

"Billy Stanlake's been in the squad here (in Brisbane), home ground, he might get first crack," pace spearhead Pat Cummins said at an event after Australia thrashed Sri Lanka by 135 runs in Adelaide. "Or else you go for the more death-bowling option of Sean Abbott."

Stanlake, who has taken 25 wickets in 17 T20Is, debuted in the format in early 2018, impressing the then assistant coach Ricky Ponting, who reckoned the 6ft 7in pacer had the potential to be "one of the all-time great fast bowlers". In the ongoing domestic one-dayers, he has five wickets in five matches for Queensland with an impressive economy rate of 4.84.

ALSO READ: Sean Abbott replaces Andrew Tye for Sri Lanka T20I series

Abbott hasn't played for Australia since 2014, all his four international appearances coming that year, but had finished the List-A leg of Australia A's UK tour as the highest wicket-taker recently. He was the second highest wicket-taker in the BBL last year, finishing two wickets behind Kane Richardson with 22.

"I'm really happy for Seany to get his chance," Cummins said. "I haven't seen a lot of him over the last 12 months but everything I keep hearing not only from the New South Wales boys but from his Aussie A tour over in England was just how well he's been bowling; really good rhythm, really good control and you've seen in the Big Bash the last few years his variations.

"So he's a big inclusion for the squad and hopefully he gets a chance - the good thing is he's in great form, so he'll be ready if picked."

Australia won the first T20I of the Sri Lanka series on Sunday, so they have the opportunity to wrap up the three-match series in Brisbane.

UAE 154 for 5 (Usman 89*, Shahzad 27, Zafar 3-21) beat Canada 140 for 5 (Dhaliwal 41, Kirton 37*, Waheed 3-21) by 14 runs

Muhammad Usman's unbeaten 89 helped UAE qualify for the playoffs of the T20 World Cup qualifiers with a 14-run win over Canada but their victory wasn't big enough to trump Ireland on the basis of net run rate. As a result, Ireland finished on the top of Group B and became the second team after Group A toppers Papua New Guinea to get a direct entry to next year's T20 World Cup.

UAE will now play Netherlands in a qualifier, with the winner going through to the T20 World Cup. The loser, however, will get another chance, in a second qualifier against Scotland.

At the start of the match, Canada too had an outside chance to top the group but the defeat meant they finished fifth with three wins from six games.

Usman, the left-hand batsman, struck six fours and two sixes in his 63-ball innings to take UAE to 154 for 5. In response, Canada were 68 for 2 after ten overs but couldn't match the climbing required rate and could reach only 140 for 5 in the end. Waheed Ahmed was the most successful bowler for UAE, picking up 3 for 21 with his medium pace.

UAE didn't have a great start after being put in and lost both their openers - Rohan Mustafa and Chirag Suri - in the first two overs. Rameez Shahzad and Usman stabilised the innings by adding 42 for the third wicket before left-arm spinner Saad Bin Zafar dismissed Shahzad for 23-ball 27.

Usman and Darius D'Silva took UAE to 95 for 3 in 15 overs with clever running between the wickets as the pair pinched 14 twos during their 73-run partnership. But Canada blew a golden opportunity to end Usman's innings in the 14th over on 40 when he pulled Dillon Heyliger to Nicholas Kirton at deep square leg, who spilled a straightforward chance. Usman stepped it up on the first ball of the 16th over, hitting Heyliger for a six over midwicket to bring up his fifty off 43 balls. Two balls later, he pulled one to fine leg for four before D'Silva ended the over with another boundary.

Zafar, who missed the previous match with a left pectoral strain, struck back with the wickets off D'Silva and Sultan Ahmed off successive deliveries. But Usman and Waheed plundered another 30 from the final two overs off Heyliger and Romesh Eranga to take UAE to a competitive total. Though spin had dominated throughout the week, and in this match itself, allrounder Nitish Kumar's offspin was never utilized to combat the left-handed Usman.

Srimantha Wijeyeratne and captain Navneet Dhaliwal gave Canada a start of 29 in 3.4 overs and the team fifty came up in the seventh over but Waheed dismissed Dhaliwal for 41 off 36 off the last ball of the 12th over. With the first ball of his next over, he had Hamza Tariq caught and bowled to dent the chase further.

Canada needed 58 from the last five overs - UAE had plundered 59 in that period - and Nicholas Kirton and Ravinderpal Singh's best efforts didn't prove enough.

The BCCI has moved a step closer to hosting a day-night Test, with a request going across to its counterparts at the BCB for the second and final Test of the upcoming India-Bangladesh series, scheduled to be played at Kolkata's Eden Gardens, to be played under lights.

ESPNcricinfo understands that the Indian board is waiting for the go-ahead from the BCB, but preparations are already underway in Kolkata despite the inclement weather of the past few days.

BCB CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury told reporters that discussions were on at their end. "We are having this discussion but we haven't decided yet," he said. "We will only decide after speaking to the players and team management."

One of the concerns for Bangladesh is their lack of match practice with the pink balls that are used in day-night Tests - only one game has been played in the country with them, the first-class Bangladesh Cricket League final in February 2013. The Indians have also not played much with pink balls - they are the only Test-playing nation, apart from Bangladesh and the two new Full Members, Afghanistan and Ireland, to not have played a day-night Test yet.

Sujan Mukherjee, the chief curator at Eden Gardens, confirmed that the organisers had been informed about the day-night Test. "We are waiting for the final go-ahead now, but yeah, we are expecting it to happen," he said. "As such, there is nothing different for us to do. A pitch is a pitch, we are hoping to make it a sporting one, with some pace."

That said, the weather in Kolkata has made it difficult to get going. "It has been raining intermittently for the past many days, and non-stop for the last three days. I am sure we will have time to do a good job, but we haven't been able to do much."

Dew could be a factor if the game goes ahead as a day-night encounter, Mukherjee pointed out: "Only the dew could be a concern. In the evening, in November... it will mean more work for us, drying the ground during the game."

But Sourav Ganguly, the new BCCI president, has spoken of the need to evolve, calling day-night Tests "the way forward" soon after taking charge last week. He also said that he had spoken to Virat Kohli, the India captain, who was on board.

"We all are thinking about this. We will do something about this," Ganguly said on Friday at Eden Gardens at a Cricket Association of Bengal event. "I am a big believer in day-night Tests. Kohli is agreeable to it. I see a lot of reports in newspapers that he is not, but that is not true.

"The game needs to go forward and that is the way forward. People should finish work and come to watch champions play. I don't know when that will happen, but it will."

Ganguly had been pushing for India to play with the pink ball even when he was head of the BCCI's technical committee. In the past, he had recommended that the BCCI continue to invest in playing Duleep Trophy matches under lights, an experiment first used in 2016. This season the board had initially planned for the Duleep final to be a day-night affair only to change its mind at the last minute.

The Eden Gardens Test is scheduled to begin on November 22, with the series of three T20Is (Delhi - November 3, Rajkot - November 7, and Nagpur - November 10] and the first Test, in Indore from November 14, preceding it.

Updates to follow…

WASHINGTON -- The dawn of the robot umpire is near, and it is time. Game 5 of the World Series exemplified this. Home-plate umpire Lance Barksdale actually called a decent game by the current standards for umpires, but the combination of a timely blown call and a hot-mic video of his rationale behind another poor judgment illustrated why automated balls and strikes must be part of baseball's future sooner than later.

Nobody in the Washington Nationals' clubhouse would say as much on the record, not after their third consecutive loss, a 7-1 clubbing by the Houston Astros, who took a 3-2 series lead and have two chances to clinch a championship at home. There is baseball left, and so long as there is baseball left, no player will dare draw the ire of the fallible men with a disproportionate control of the game. But one player acknowledged that Game 5 had changed his mind about a computerized strike zone -- that having witnessed a bad call rob the Nationals of a game-tying opportunity, the arguments in favor of technology over eyeballs are simply too compelling.

"I was against it until now," he said.

The call in question came in the seventh inning. The Astros led, 4-1. There were two outs and Ryan Zimmerman stood on first. He was there after taking a full-count pitch that Astros starter Gerrit Cole and Martin Maldonado themselves thought was an inning-ending strike. Cole went full again and threw Victor Robles a slider. Robles saw it tilt off the plate. Barksdale punched him out anyway.

It was a brutal break -- higher than the pitch to Zimmerman, farther outside than the pitch to Zimmerman, still a strikeout anyway. While Zimmerman's words after the game were accurate -- "Lance didn't lose us the game tonight," he said, "Gerrit Cole beat us" -- a walk presumably would have chased Cole from the game and allowed Washington to bring the tying run to the plate.

"We all make mistakes," Robles said. "I felt like he might have made a mistake on that pitch, but that's part of being human, human nature."

The logic behind human over technology crumbles upon even the simplest critical analysis. If a system that tracks balls and strikes not just accurately but more important consistently -- and while it does not yet, it is close enough to become a reality over the next few years -- then why stick with something inferior? Barksdale and his peers do incredible work given their innate flaws -- their humanity. The question for baseball is if the romance of that humanity is more important than right vs. wrong.

And it really is that simple, that binary. A ball is a pitch outside of the strike zone. A strike is a pitch inside the strike zone. There is no gray area, no ball one time and strike another. This makes automated balls and strikes the perfect sort of system to institute. Not one that is up for interpretation, one that can be tricked or fooled or that necessitates sleight of hand. A ball is a ball and a strike is a strike like grass is green and sky is blue.

Or should be. It wasn't an inning before the Robles strikeout. Nationals reliever Tanner Rainey delivered a perfect 2-2 pitch to Michael Brantley: inside corner, 99 mph, paint. Catcher Yan Gomes caught it and stood up to throw the ball around the horn. Barksdale was silent. Gomes had come out of his crouch too quickly. He didn't hold the ball there for Barksdale to see it. So even though the pitch went through the strike zone, the presentation of the pitch made it a ball, which is some galaxy-brain stuff.

Thankfully, baseball's technological advances do not stop with the pitch tracking that confirmed this was a strike. There are also on-field microphones that catch the interactions among players and umpires, and the one between Barksdale and Gomes was a doozy that ended with Gomes looking back at Barksdale and saying, "My fault?", as if he had somehow magically made the ball that zipped through the strike zone appear out of it. Rainey escaped the inning on the next pitch. That didn't prevent Nationals manager Dave Martinez from expressing his ire between innings.

"C'mon, Lance!" a mic caught Martinez yelling from the dugout. "It's the World Series! Wake up!"

Following the game, a far calmer Martinez said: "I will not ever sit here and criticize an umpire. I have known Lance for a very long time, and he is really good. And that is all I'm going to say about it. I'm not going to sit here -- I know there was some choice words, but that is just in the heat of the moment." That is reasonable. But his criticism wasn't wrong. When true, unbridled consistency is more than a figment of the imagination, anything short of that feels insufficient.

It's what makes glamorizing the human element such a farce. Just because the game itself is full of errors shouldn't give leeway to its arbiters to be judged by that standard. Baseball is an extraordinarily fast game -- so fast that umpires should have assistance. Technology has made their jobs even more difficult, exposing them when they miss a call, airing their conversations about those missed calls. Automated balls and strikes are their savior, not their enemy.

Now, a caveat: As the beta testing in the Arizona Fall League this month has shown, the robot ump needs work. Like, a lot of work. Breaking balls in the dirt that cut through a fraction of the three-dimensional zone have been called strikes. They look ridiculous. Hitters think they're ridiculous. Even the pitchers themselves think they're ridiculous. Before a wider institution of the automated system, Major League Baseball will need to redefine the strike zone, something that has been done before but always runs the risk of poison by unintended consequences.

Of course, that's what the minor leagues are for. To test. To iterate. To perfect. To get this ready for the show. Currently, MLB and the umpires' union are negotiating a new labor contract. An automated strike zone belongs in the center of the discussions. Umpires understand how instant replay has been beneficial to them. Taking balls and strikes out of their hands would be even more so.

Yes, it would get rid of the "Umps you suck!" chant that pervaded the stadium during Game 5. "Robots you suck!" just doesn't sound quite as good. Gone, too, will be squabbling and the tussles and the manager-umpire arguments, but truth is, most of that has vanished already. Baseball in 2019 is sanitized to the point that confrontations are an anachronism. You argue balls and strikes, you get run from the game. Simple as that.

The blown ball-strike call is fading away as well. Because whether it's two or three or four years from now, home plate in the World Series is going to be run by a computer feeding a call into a set of ear buds worn by the person in blue standing behind home plate. Robot umpires are coming. Too late for the Nationals, but they're coming.