The Yankees-White Sox game got heated thanks to a strike zone that never showed up. Umpire Laz Diaz was calling pitches off the outside corner all night, mostly because his stance on the inside gave him a bad angle. White Sox pitcher Dylan Cease took advantage, living just off the plate and getting called strikes anyway. Yankees manager Aaron Boone finally had enough. He exploded after a borderline call and got tossed immediately. Then the real show started.
With hot mics picking up the exchange, Boone let Diaz have it. He listed the blown calls on DJ LeMahieu and Gleyber Torres before delivering a blunt, repeated message: “You stink.” Diaz fired back with a “No, you stink” of his own and added, “What have you done here?” as the argument got personal. Boone walked toward the plate to show where the calls were missed. Diaz egged him on, telling him to “play your game” and even encouraged him to draw a line in the dirt. Boone did — a massive one — signaling how far off the plate the calls were. After all that prompting from Diaz, Boone made sure to drive the point home.
The crew caught Boone mocking Diaz’s strike call motion and delivering one last “you stink” in his face. It was one of the more animated ejections of the year. Boone clearly wanted to make a statement, and Diaz didn’t back down either. The mic’d-up exchange gave fans a front-row seat to one of the most direct manager-umpire clashes in recent memory.