Chad Moriyama Dodgers, Sabermetrics, Scouting
In case you’ve been living under a rock or something, Dodgers fans are rightfully concerned that Matt Kemp might be in a bit of hot water after yesterday’s game, where he bumped/ran into/pushed back an umpire or two during a heated argument with basically the entire crew.
“Let’s go, Dre!”
Those apparently were the words that got center fielder Matt Kemp ejected during the second inning of the Dodgers’ 10-6 loss to the Pirates on Thursday. After Kemp was tossed, manager Don Mattingly came out to argue before getting the boot, too.
“Matt got thrown out today for cheering for Andre [Ethier],” Mattingly said. “He was barking about the pitch to Dre, the second strike, but then Angel said, ‘That’s enough. I don’t want to hear another word.’ So the next thing that came out of [Matt's mouth] — I heard it, clear as a bell — he said — because Matt knows where to stop — and Matt said, ‘Let’s go, Dre!’ And [Campos] looked over, and he threw him out of the game. It’s unacceptable.”
Mattingly and Kemp stormed out of the dugout following the center fielder’s ejection. Mattingly initially restrained Kemp before Shane Victorino and bench coach Trey Hillman stepped in. That let Mattingly argue with the umpires for several minutes before he was kicked out, as well.
“It’s unbelievable, man. I don’t get it,” Kemp said. “I’m sitting here, watching the game. There’s some big moments, you know, bases loaded. You think about things like that. You might be up to bat. You might get that big hit.
“But that wasn’t able to happen today, because I got kicked out of the game for something that wasn’t worth getting kicked out of the game for.”
As I said yesterday, unless they are completely lying, it was quite the ump show with the ringleader being Angel Campos. However, no matter how ridiculous the reason for ejection, physically contacting an umpire is rightfully a no-no, and it’s hard to deny it happens.
You could argue that there’s two separate umpires that he initiates physical contact with. Granted, it’s not like he was trying to get physical with either umpire involved in the incidents, as it was more like he was just trying to push through everybody and anybody to get into the face of Campos. Regardless though, Angels pitching coach Mike Butcher got a game for “aggressively arguing” on Tuesday, so I think Kemp is staring down at least a game suspension and as much as three, depending on how the MLB views Kemp’s contact.
Given his value to the team and the fact that the division race is a dead heat, it’s not a stretch to say that it could cost the Dodgers in the end if he gets suspended at all.
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On a lighter note, there’s this:
I vote one game, but I think he gets three.
I’m betting on one, actually. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of outrage about this or anything.
:o
I’m guessing he gets more than 1 game just cuz of how pissed he was and how many people he was contacting. However, I don’t recall umpires being the focus of attention this much in the past. Seems like every couple days there’s some discussion over the umps, whether it’s a jacked up strike zone, missed calls, yelling at players in the dugout or whatever. Some of the strike and strikeout calls are pretty ridiculous, as well.
I’m all for robot umps…just so long as they have a bunch of backups for when the players beat ‘em over the head with a baseball bat every time they make a call that’s not in the favor of the player, lol.
1) The media coverage highlights them more now.
2) They are shitty at their jobs and they basically can’t get fired.
3) They do appear to be getting more and more sensitive as a result of this.
It should be no games as the contact that Kemp made with the umpires are a result of the umpire trying to step between Campos and Kemp. There was never any threat of contact prior to the umpire trying to use his own body to shield Kemp away. Campos is a horrible umpire and stats clearly back that up. Campos should be sat down for the same number of games they give Matty.
I don’t disagree with you, but if they suspend a guy for arguing loudly, they’re gonna suspend a guy for driving his body into an umpire.
I just don’t understand when umps decided the game was about them. I mean, does anybody go to a game to see a specific ump? come on. of course not. what campos did was ridiculous; he must be the kid who never got picked for kickball. unfortunately, between the mlb cartel and the ump cartel, nothing will be done.
Not sure when it got so bad, but even as recently as 2009, I don’t remember being so upset with the quality of umpiring.