Matt Shoemaker was cruising in Buffalo with a 2-0 lead in the fourth, but things unraveled quickly. After a single and a walk, he battled back to strike out G-Man Choi and looked poised to escape the jam. Yoshi Tsutsugo stepped in and quickly fell behind, then fouled off a pitch Shoemaker and the Jays thought should have been strike three. Shoemaker walked off the mound, thinking the inning was over, but home plate umpire Vic Carapazza called it a ball. Next pitch, Tsutsugo went opposite field for a game-tying homer.
Shoemaker lost it. He screamed into his glove, barked at the ump, then struck out the next hitter to end the inning. But the shouting didn’t stop. He kept yelling in the dugout, then turned his frustration directly at the umpire. Carapazza tossed him. Shoemaker wasn’t done. He had to be held back as he shouted over and over, furious about the missed call. Manager Charlie Montoyo, usually calm, got involved too and asked to be tossed. The ump obliged.
Shoemaker’s ERA took a hit, and Toronto ended up losing the game. Vlad Guerrero Jr. tied it up briefly with an RBI the next inning, but the damage was done. The blown strike call changed the flow of the game, and the Jays couldn’t recover.