Sox win, skirt drama
O’s left ejected, dejected
Kevin Gausman cringed as his pitch, a 76-mph breaking ball to Xander Bogaerts to lead off the second inning, drifted off the plate and hit the Red Sox shortstop in the backside. It was not the pitch the Orioles starter intended to throw.
But it would also be his last in the Red Sox’ 4-2 victory over the Orioles last night at Fenway Park.
As Gausman stepped off the rubber after the throw, home plate umpire Sam Holbrook stunningly ejected him from the game. The Orioles, understandably, were incensed.
Catcher Caleb Joseph was the most animated, slamming down on the dirt before getting up to protest the rash decision. Gausman looked to be yelling “Curveball!” at Holbrook as manager Buck Showalter stormed out of the dugout to express his displeasure.
“Just complete bush league, to be honest,” Gausman said. “To throw me out in that situation after what (Chris) Sale did yesterday. Throwing 98 behind a guy. On purpose. Everybody knew it, and you’re going to throw me out for hitting a guy on a curveball. (The score was) 0-0 in the second inning. I mean, it’s pretty bush league.”
There had been no warnings issued before the ejection. Not even after this feud between the Red Sox and Orioles that has dragged on for nearly two weeks prompted Major League Baseball to hold a conference call with the teams yesterday in an effort to knock off the nonsense.
“Anybody that knows baseball knows he’s not trying to hit him with a 77 mph curveball or changeup,” Showalter said. “It just makes you shake your head.”
But all the drama apparently afforded neither team even the slightest room for error, at least in the eyes of Holbrook.
“Just given the situation and the tension between the two clubs and all the stuff that’s gone over the past few weeks, we’re all on high alert with anything,” Holbrook told a pool reporter after the game. “I know that the ball was a curveball, but it hit him square in the back and just making a split decision at that point right there, there needs to be an end to this stuff, and I felt like an ejection was the right thing to do at that time, and that’s what we did. Thankfully, we didn’t have any more problems the rest of the game.”
Even the Red Sox acknowledged they didn’t expect to see Gausman thrown out.
“I think it kind of caught us all a little off-guard,” Red Sox manager John Farrell said. “That’s the most I can say right now. It was surprising.”
To add insult to injury to the Orioles, Bogaerts later scored on a single by Josh Rutledge, who had replaced Marco Hernandez (left shoulder strain) at third base.
Gausman’s ejection forced the O’s into their bullpen early. Today’s scheduled starter, Ubaldo Jimenez, was forced into work in the sixth inning, but not before Richard Bleier ran into trouble. The defense behind him didn’t help matters, either.
Bogaerts led off the fourth inning with a weak grounder that rolled through the legs of shortstop J.J. Hardy, and two batters later Chris Young doubled to center to score Bogaerts. Rutledge followed with another grounder to Hardy, who airmailed a throw to home, where Mitch Moreland scored easily.
The Red Sox scored three times in the fourth, which was enough for starter Drew Pomeranz and the bullpen. Pomeranz started rocky with a 34-pitch first inning, but settled down for an efficient 51⁄ innings. He struck out seven, including Adam Jones, who was also ejected after saying something to Holbrook as he walked away following his fifth-inning strikeout.
It was that kind of night for the Orioles.
Pomeranz was responsible for the two runs off the two hits coughed up by Heath Hembree in the sixth, but the bullpen was mostly spotless as the combination of Hembree, Matt Barnes, Robby Scott and Craig Kimbrel — who struck out the side in the ninth for his AL-leading 10th save — finished the job.