The Accidental ABS Challenge Is MLB’s Latest Growing Trend

The universally accepted move to signal an ABS challenge is a player tapping his helmet or cap. This has posed problems for players with a habit of doing so.

Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers seemed to fall victim to the accidental ABS challenge during an April 8 game. | John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images

Imagine you’re a baseball hitter in the batter’s box. You take a pitch for a called strike, and as you’ve done many times before, you adjust your helmet by putting your hand atop the equipment. Or maybe you’re a pitcher, recalibrating your cap after a particularly laborious pitch. Unfortunately, in both instances, you’ve just signaled to a home-plate umpire that you want to utilize an ABS challenge.

Now into the third week of MLB season, we’ve all heard of the ABS challenge, baseball’s new technological ball-and-strike arbiter that allows hitters, pitchers and catchers to essentially audit home-plate umpires in real time.

The universally accepted move to signal an ABS challenge is a player tapping his helmet or cap. This has posed problems for players with a habit of doing so.

The not-so-convenient similarities between ABS challenge gesture and habitual tic have led to a growing trend in the early parts of the 2026 season: the accidental challenge.

Consider the first case, involving Dodgers’ two-way star Shohei Ohtani and catcher Will Smith during an April 8 game against the Blue Jays. Smith tapped the top of his helmet after Ohtani’s first pitch of the game in the bottom of the first inning, hardly an ideal time to utilize one of the two ABS challenges teams are provided with. The pitch, as home-plate umpire Dan Bellino had initially ruled, was a ball well below the strike zone. Why challenge it?

Theory about this very odd challenge, which was the first challenge this year to occur on the first pitch of the first inning.

Ohtani went to fix his hat, but Smith thought he wanted him to challenge so Smith tapped his head. Weird one. pic.twitter.com/U9ObTByXC8

— Jake Mintz (@Jake_Mintz) April 8, 2026

A closer look at the sequence shows that Ohtani reached up to adjust his cap just before Smith tapped the top of his helmet. Did Smith misinterpret Ohtani’s gesture as an intention to challenge the call? Or did Smith feel particularly strongly about the way he had framed the pitch? Admittedly, I wasn’t entirely sure one way or the other at the time, but my spidey senses certainly were tingling to the notion that the accidental challenge was a real thing.

Sunday’s slate of baseball games provided some clearer evidence that we have a trend developing.

In the top of the fourth inning of the Rays’ 5–4 win over the Yankees, New York first baseman Ben Rice took a knee-high cutter in the zone and was rung up, coincidentally enough, by Bellino, who was behind the plate. Rice tossed his bat, then touched the top of his helmet as he began his trek towards the dugout. Bellino, however, interpreted the helmet gesture as a challenge initiation, to the dismay of Rice, who attempted to explain that yes, he did touch the top of his helmet but no, it wasn’t to signal a challenge. It did no good. Bellino announced the challenge as Rice hung his head like a student who had been called out in front of the class.

Ben Rice loses another challenge on a pitch that was comfortably in the strike zone. Rice was seemingly telling the umpire that he didn't want to use a challenge despite touching his helmet pic.twitter.com/lIexKykvxt

— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) April 12, 2026

The call was upheld as a strikeout and the Yankees had burned their first challenge without even meaning to utilize it in the first place.

They weren’t the only ones.

The Pirates too were docked a challenge after starting pitcher Bubba Chandler pulled the old touch-the-back-of-your-cap move while facing the Cubs’ Moisés Ballesteros during the first inning of Sunday’s 7–6 loss to the Cubs. Fortunately for Chandler and the Pirates, the accidental challenge actually resulted in a ball being overturned to a strike—and the righty struck out Ballesteros on the ensuing pitch.

Well... this is a new one! 🫨

Bubba accidentally challenged a pitch by adjusting his cap, but he ended up winning it 🤣 🧢 pic.twitter.com/xM3mTUyqvO

— SportsNet Pittsburgh (@SNPittsburgh) April 12, 2026

At the end of the inning, Chandler good-naturedly explained to home-plate umpire Alan Porter that he was just fixing his cap.

While they’re somewhat amusing when they happen, these accidental challenges could result in potential arguments and, in a sentence that will make heads spin, challenges of challenges. We’ve already seen one manager ejected for arguing that the other team didn’t initiate an ABS challenge soon enough. How long before we see a manager ejected for arguing a challenge that never was?

There’s probably a simple fix here. Either encourage players to verbally issue their ABS challenges so as to avoid any faux helmet taps. Or—a radical idea here I know—change the gesture to initiate an ABS challenge to something players haven’t performed countless times since they’ve been on Little League fields.

Until then, we may see more “Accidental Ball-Strike” challenges.

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