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Baseball Today: Wednesday, May 28 »
May 28, 2008
BY SEAN McADAM
Journal Sports Writer
SEATTLE -- Minutes after Daisuke Matsuzaka left the game -- voluntarily -- Julio Lugo and Terry Francona did, too, though not of their own accord.
In the home half of the fifth inning, reliever David Aardsma threw a 1-and-0 pitch to Raul Ibanez. Believing that Ibanez had committed and swung through, the Sox asked home-plate umpire Eric Cooper to check with third-base umpire Angel Hernandez. Hernandez signaled "safe" with his arms, indicating Ibanez had held up and the pitch was a ball.
Lugo had been shouting "Check! Check!" from his shortstop position, indicating he wanted help from Hernandez on the pitch. After Hernandez ruled that Ibanez had held up, Lugo said the umpire was staring at him. When Lugo asked what he was staring at, Hernandez ejected him.
Lugo raced over to Hernandez for an explanation and the umpire several times turned away from the infielder, ignoring his question. Francona raced out to restrain Lugo and, not long after, got himself ejected, too.
"I didn't say nothing else," maintained Lugo after the game, a 4-3 Sox loss, had ended. "There's nothing else I can say. I don't know -- I don't understand. I just wanted to know why he threw me out."
Added an exasperated Francona: "I wouldn't know where to begin. I just wanted to get Lugo out of there and move on with the game."
Lugo and Hernandez have something of a history. In April of 2007, with the Sox playing the Orioles in Baltimore, Lugo asked for time to step out of the batter's box. The request, routinely granted by umpires in almost every circumstance -- on Tuesday night, for instance, Cooper called time when Manny Ramirez asked just as Mariners starter Miguel Batista was beginning his windup -- was denied by Hernandez, the home-plate umpire at the time, and a pitch by Daniel Cabrera called a strike.
At the time, Lugo said of Hernandez: "He's just hard to talk to. Personally, that guy, there's something wrong with him."
The ejections were the first this season for both Lugo and Francona, but the third team ejection on the current road trip. Hitting coach Dave Magadan was thrown out Friday night in Oakland.
Posted by Sean McAdam 
at 2:34 AM | Permalink
Brian | May 28, 2008 11:42 AM link
Robert S | May 28, 2008 10:02 PM link
Umpires are getting worse and worse every year. They are there to call balls and strikes. That's it. They pick fights with playes, ride their butt if they argue calls, following them towards the dugout and keep pushing until the player says something back or does something so he can give them the boot. It is pathetic. People are paying to see the players, not the umps. I think MLB needs to address this problem with all these arrogant jerks behind the plate.