OK, so it wasn't technically a robot that ejected San Francisco Giants prospect Jacob Heyward from a baseball game Tuesday night. But, in practice, that's exactly what happened.
The Arizona Fall League, an off-season league with teams composed of minor league prospects, is testing an "automated ball-strike system," or robot umpire, for their 2019 season. The pitch-tracking computer system relays ball-and-strike calls to the home plate umpire through an audio feed, according to MLB.com.
A call from the automated ball-strike system, evidently, is what Heyward was contesting when a curveball swooped in and nicked the low-and-outside corner for a called strike three.