Dodgers News: Max Muncy and Dave Roberts Ejected by Home Plate Umpire
Things got spicy late in the game on Saturday as third baseman Max Muncy and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts were ejected from the game. Muncy threw his bat toward the visiting dugout at Fenway Park after taking a questionable strike three call to end a big Dodger threat. The ball was clearly down on the broadcast, but home plate umpire Jordan Baker felt otherwise.
After Muncy tossed his bat, he and Baker got into a bit of a shouting match as veteran Jason Heyward ran out to try to keep Max in the game but that was just too little too late. As Muncy was ejected, Roberts ran out and was sent to the showers early as well.
Here’s a look at the scene.
The consensus feeling online was that Baker had a pretty quick hook.
Here’s a secondary look from stands from a fan.
Rookie Michael Busch came on to play third base for the rest of the game and bench coach Danny Lehmann took over for Roberts.
UPDATE
After the game, Muncy actually mostly commended the home plate ump for his consistency behind the dish. That is every call but that critical one in the top of the 8th inning. Here’s his version of their exchange.
“I told him the ball was down, to which his response was, ‘You threw your bat.’ That kind of locked me up a little bit so I responded with, ‘I need you to lock it in with a big situation like that.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, OK.’ And threw me out.”
The Dodgers fell to the Red Sox 8-5 in the middle game of the series.
Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
While watching this game along with many others, it’s very disturbing how many calls of balls and strikes are way off the mark! Realizing that in todays existence of really great pitchers throwing extremely tough pitches to call balls and strikes by these umpires, it certainly would be appropriate to enact electronic balls and strikes now.