Blue Jays coach ejected while talking to pitcher, a breakdown
What Happened
In the bottom of the second inning of this game, the Toronto Blue Jays' pitching coach Pete Walker is visibly frustrated after a pitch from starting pitcher Mitch White is not called a strike by the home plate umpire. Walker emerges from the dugout and approaches the mound to speak with White, likely voicing his disagreement with the umpire's call. As Walker and White converse, the umpire quickly approaches the mound, sensing that Walker intends to argue the call rather than simply talk strategy with his pitcher. The umpire interrupts the discussion and ejects Walker on the spot, not even allowing the customary 30 seconds for the coach to speak with the pitcher. "I won't even give you the 30 seconds. I know that you want to talk to me, not him," the umpire tells Walker as he is ejected from the game. A frustrated Walker then unleashes a profanity-laced tirade, expressing his displeasure with the umpire's performance so far. "You missed fucking two. Been fucking terrible. Then fucking lock it in. Lock it in," Walker shouts. As the umpire approaches Walker to escort him off the field, their baseball caps briefly touch, leading to a brief, lighthearted interaction. "You touched my hat a little bit. That's a fine," the umpire says, to which Walker retorts that it was the umpire who made contact with his hat. Blue Jays manager John Schneider also comes out to argue with the umpire, but Walker ultimately departs the field to a standing ovation from the home crowd. The game continues with Mitch White still on the mound, facing the San Diego Padres' Trent Grisham. White works his way through the at-bat, eventually recording the third out of the inning despite the distractions caused by the heated exchange between his pitching coach and the umpire. The score remains tied 2-2 as the game moves to the top of the third inning.
Full Transcript
Click timestamps to jump to that momentSecond inning of this game, this video is brought to you by JM Baseball, YouTube channel for baseball lovers.
That pitch, they wanted it as a strike. They didn't get it. He says, enough. Stop.
He says, alright, that hit. That hit. That hit the zone. I liked it.
Maybe they wanted that one too. Nice pitch by Minnow. He's got his stuff dancing every direction.
He's dancing around the edges. Alright, come on now, let's do it.
That's pitching coach Pete Walker. Ground ball. There's out number one.
Curve ball to Carpenter on the 1-2 pitch. Is Minnow going to catch it? No way.
Out number two. Vladdy's got to climb the mound. They have a good laugh about it.
Now, Grisham's up, and that's strike one. Grisham doesn't like it, but it's a nice pitch.
And then that ball dances the other way for strike two.
0-2, they go low. He doesn't bite, so they go high. He doesn't bite.
Strike three. They say, nope, that was high.
And everyone's a little upset about this one.
Minnow handles it pretty well. He says, hey, we're the 5th.
What the fuck was that? Huh? He's getting antsy.
Umpire's like, I hear ya. I don't want to hear ya anymore, though.
At-bat continues. That's a foul ball. They don't look happy at all.
The 2-2. That's ball three. They still very frustrated over there.
Up top again. Don't get it again. So a walk.
So pitching coach Pete Walker comes to the mound, and he's got one thing he's got to say,
and it's not to the pitcher. Minnow looks at his catcher,
says, that was up. He's handling it well.
Now, there's an allotted amount of time the coach has to talk to the pitcher,
and usually the umpire's going to walk out, and then he can have some words with him if he wants.
It's a sneaky way to do it without showing him up.
And you can see the catcher kind of turn and be like, where's the ump?
And you see the umpire's coming right away. He's like, I won't even give you the 30 seconds.
I know that you want to talk to me, not him. So here we go. Let's do it.
And then you can see Minnow looking at the umpire, because I bet Pete Walker's saying,
is he coming? Is he close enough to hear me? And Minnow says, yep.
And then he says something. Who knows? Because he's covering his mouth,
but it's probably something like, hey, just keep throwing strikes.
Who cares if this guy doesn't have a clue where the fucking zone is?
Or he says, hey, don't worry about it. This guy's just blowing it all day.
And the umpire says, oh, I heard that. You're ejected.
And then he's going to turn. He says, you missed fucking two.
Been fucking terrible. Then fucking lock it in. Lock it in.
All right.
Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. You touched my hat a little bit. That's a fine.
Now, I don't like this. Look at the umpire. He's going to walk towards the pitching coach,
kind of announce his presence, walk him back a little bit. Pitching coach gives him room,
then just kind of starts standing his ground. And when he stands his ground,
the umpire walked so close to him that their hats touch. A little kiss of the hats right there.
Dancing. They like each other. They're not fighting in any way. And then the umpire is
going to say, and you just touched my hat. He's like, no, dude, you touched his hat.
You got in his face. You walked to him. You wanted your hats to kiss. You saw that they
might like it. You touched my hat. That's fine. I hope he didn't get fined for that.
The league should look into that. Like, no, umpire walked towards him.
Manager Schneider comes out and he's like, hey, blue, blue, blue, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And Pete Walker walks off the mound. He got ejected. He gets a standing ovation.
The inning continues. 2-2 pitch. Another high.
Two-seam fastball. And this one is caught at the track. So no damage done on that walk
besides the ejection. And maybe the hat kiss fine. Hopefully that didn't really happen.
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