Alfonso Marquez and his crew had no good reason to toss Yimi Garcia.
You missed a doozy if you didn't catch yesterday's Yankees-Blue Jays game. Two star-studded teams going at it for nine innings, culminating in a walk-off three-run jack by Aaron Judge, the first of his career (weird that he's never hit a walk-off home run before last night, no?). Yankees win, 6-5.
Great game all-around. Nothing to bitch about, right?
Wrong. 'Cause the collection of dipshits known as the umpiring crew last night decided to check their common sense in at the door and start prejudicially throwing people out.
6th Inning
Blue Jays reliever Yimi Garcia gave up a game-tying home run to Giancarlo Stanton in the bottom of the 6th, which made the score 3-3. Oh well, shit happens. Stanton does that a lot. Next batter is Josh Donaldson. He swings through the first pitch for strike one. The next offering gets away from Garcia and plunks Donaldson in the arm. He's clearly in pain, but shakes it off and walks down to first base. The Yankees dugout is up in arms for some reason, as is the raucous home crowd. That's when the umpires congregate to see what to do about this nothing burger.
They decide to throw out Garcia without a warning. They then throw out pitching coach Pete Walker, who was hollering his disapproval.
More stupidity would ensue.
7th Inning
Not a full inning later, Yankees reliever Jonathan Loaisiga fired a 97 MPH fastball up and in to Bo Bichette. What did home plate umpire Lance Barrett do? Nothing. The Blue Jays dugout was incensed, rightfully so. This led to Jays manager Charlie Montoyo getting the hook.
Thankfully, there were no more opportunities for this crew to make fools of themselves.
Utter Lack of Awareness
This crew had zero feel. Negative amounts of feel. An umpiring crew composed of foreign exchange students from Uganda would have had more feel than these schmucks. In what fucking world would Yimi Garcia hit a dude on purpose in a 3-3 ballgame against your biggest divisional rival, while up 0-1 on the batter? It would take Dr. Strange years to find that universe. To make matters worse, if it's unclear enough that you have to gather up and talk about what to do, why would you not give him a warning instead of just tossing him? It's gotta really be obvious for a pitcher to get ejected without a warning. The fact that you're huddled together for that long, debating things, suggests it wasn't obvious at all.
Alfonso Marquez, who was the crew chief, said after the game that they felt Garcia's pitch was intentional because Donaldson and Jays catcher Tyler Heineman had gotten into a verbal spat earlier in the game. Seriously, how does that play out in your head? "Yimi, what's up, dude? So listen, this fuckhead Donaldson said something to me a little while ago, and it just has me royally pissed, lemme tell ya. I know this is a tight game and you're coming in at a pivotal moment and all, but I'm gonna need you to plunk him. No one says a hot dog is a sandwich and gets away with it on my watch."
Weak-ass reasoning from a weak-ass group of umpires. They were influenced by the Yankees dugout and the crowd. Plain and simple. If this game is played in Toronto do they go on an ejection spree over a clearly-unintentional errant pitch that the batter himself didn't take umbrage to? No shot. It would have made slightly more sense if they tossed Loaisiga the inning after. They just had a quick trigger tonight. But no. Crickets.
This comedy of errors is getting just as much airtime as Judge's first walk-off blast, which is a shame. A marquee matchup shouldn't be ruined by buffoons who can't make decisions in a vacuum, like they should. To hell with what the crowd wants or what the players want. Use your damn heads. You tossed three players/coaches from the same team, for nothing.
The Ump Show never disappoints.