We’ve seen our fair share of bad umpiring this season, such as the absurd strike zone against the Oakland A’s and the missed tag call last week against the Yankees, but Tuesday’s events in The Bronx absolutely take the cake.
Yimi Garcia came into the game in relief of Yusei Kikuchi in the sixth inning and allowed a game-tying home run to Giancarlo Stanton. The next guy up was Josh Donaldson, who got plunked in the back by a fastball from Garcia. The umpires had a meeting and then opted to kick Garica out of the game.
After the game, crew chief Alfonso Marquez said the reason that Garcia was booted was because catcher Tyler Heineman and Donaldson were jawing back and forth earlier and they deemed the plunk to be intentional because of that…
“Earlier in the game, there were some words exchanged between Donaldson and Toronto’s catcher, so that definitely played into it. There were pretty strong words.
Then you have a game-tying home run and the second pitch, which we deemed intentional, which was the reason for the ejection. All that really played into it. It had nothing to do with (Donaldson’s) reaction. It had everything to do with the game situations that led up to that specific incident.
Given all the situations up to that specific moment, we just deemed it intentional. And when that happens, we have to eject and/or (give) warnings, but we felt ejection was the way to go.”
Meanwhile, the crew didn’t believe that this 97-mile-per-hour fastball from up high from Jonathan Loaisiga to Bo Bichette the following inning was intentional at all…
The odd thing here is that the high fastball from Loaisiga, which came shortly after Donaldson was hit, seems much more retaliatory in nature than Garcia’s pitch the previous inning, which came when there were no fireworks at all between the two teams. Though, to be fair to Loaisiga, we can’t say for sure that it was intentional, as he’s had troubles with command his entire career.
Anyways, the most egregious part of this whole situation is the rationale for tossing Garcia with no warning and with a very questionable rationale.
Why would Heineman tell Garcia to plunk Donaldson in the middle of a 3-3 game in which the Blue Jays badly need to get outs? Also, knowing Donaldson well given he played with the Blue Jays for multiple years, we all know he’s the type of player to jaw often on the field, so him going back and forth with Heineman wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary.
Garcia also chimed in after the game, stating that he didn’t intend to hit Donaldson and that the balls being used were more slippery than usual, which resulted in his poor command…
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