THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Behind the challenge of Mariners challenging ball-strike calls

I’m not sure how they measure things like this.

Whenever it comes up, in a movie or TV documentary, there’s always a giant board in the background with so many algebraic equations scrawled in every direction that Einstein would feel shamed.

Those several thousand versions of the general theory of relativity don’t mean anything.

They’re just supposed to look cool.

No one takes all the scribbling seriously — except Jerry Dipoto.

The Mariners boss was driving home one night, when it occurred to him that his troops were dead last in successful use of ball-and-strike challenges.

So, what’s the deal?

Do they feel like telling an umpire he’s wrong is just plain rude?

If I had to guess exactly WHEN this issue got to Dipoto, it might have been the night Cal Raleigh took a called third strike with two on in the eighth inning and the M’s trailing by a run.

That 3-2 pitch was close.

It was a change-up (who wants to throw Cal a fastball in that situation?), and the big guy checked his swing as the pitch drifted down and out of the strike zone.

SO, WHY wouldn’t Cal tap his hat to challenge the call?

Just plain indecision, maybe?

Hitters only get a few moments to signal for a challenge.

It isn’t just Cal, by the way.

According to Baseball Savant, the Mariners are last in the majors in hitters’ successful challenges (10 per game through April 25) and it’s certainly not just Raleigh.

By the way, there are games when the whole lineup has had reasons to take some chances.

On Sunday in St. Louis, the M’s and Cardinals combined to fire off eight challenges against plate umpire John Bacon.

They won all eight, which tells you that Bacon was having a helluva bad night.

In the ninth inning, pinch-hitter Rob Refsnyder challenged a two-strike call.

Bacon called it strike three, which would have been a big call in a 2-2 game.

Refsnyder challenged the pitch decision and won, keeping his at-bat alive.

Four pitches later, he drilled a sweeper from JoJo Romero into the left-field seats, putting Seattle up 3-2 and setting up the M’s fourth straight victory.

While we’re on the subject of ABS calls, you won’t be surprised to hear that the Mariners pitching staff leads all of MLB at 13.6.

Maybe they should conduct classes for their own hitters on being more aggressive with challenges.

I’d pay to watch that.

THE M’S reluctance to object when pitches are clearly out of the zone has had the effect of keeping games moving along, although that wasn’t MLB’s plan.

Not at all.

Part of the strategy was to speed things up, getting pitchers to throw strikes, and hitters to respond by putting the ball in play.

The idea of Bacon missing eight pitches (at least eight, there could have been more that weren’t challenged) wasn’t exactly the idea.

Missed calls have always been part of the game.

Ironically, there was a home run after an apparent strikeout on Sunday in the Cubs-Rockies game — it nearly changed the game, and we might have gotten a hint why hitters and pitchers don’t rush to challenge the umps.

A 35-year-old in his 11th big-league season, Refsnyder used a challenge for the first time, and it made him a little bit nervous.

“It’s not super natural to question the umpire like that,” he said.

“But I’m thankful. Obviously, that was huge.”

Maybe a game-winner or two will convince the Mariners that a perfectly legal challenge is now just part of the show.

A win in the standings is no bad thing, either.

Email: [email protected]

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press three times each week, normally Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On."