After yesterday’s debacle, today certainly seemed to be must see television, but after Clayton Kershaw pitched normally to Gerardo Parra in the third inning, it did seem like today’s game would proceed normally.

In the top of sixth inning, however, with Parra at-bat for the second time, Kershaw threw a strike and then grazed Parra on the elbow with an inside fastball, leading home plate umpire Bill Welke to eject him.

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Thoughts on it?

Jim Bowden: “Clayton Kershaw in an obvious Cy Young Award race with Roy Halladay is ejected after 5 scoreless innings by HP umpire Tim Welke w/o warning?”

Tim Brown: “Total overreaction by Welke. That’s just sad.”

Jimmy Bramlett: “I think I’ve been a very impartial observer w/r/t the #Dodgers this season, but that’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve seen this season.”

Clayton Kershaw: “I understand he has a job to do, but just pay attention to the game and understand what’s going on a little bit better.”

Clayton Kershaw: “First at-bat, I threw them all away, and he hit a double. Next at-bat, I have to pitch him in. It’s just unfortunate in my opinion.”

Rick Honeycutt: “I think it was a BS call. If we were going to hit him, it’d be in his back”

As for me, as I said earlier on Twitter, I just think that if Kershaw wanted to hit Parra intentionally, he would have done it in a way that the intention was explicitly clear.

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Reaction after the pitch was amusing though, leading to GIF fun.

WAT

Don Mattingly getting insanely mad was definitely the highlight of all this.

I gotta admit, it was a fun couple of days.

Tonight’s game was a rather uneventful affair in what amounted to a meaningless game for the Dodgers, only notable for Chad Billinglsey’s continued inability to miss bats and Jerry Sands’ solid all-around game. For better or worse though, Gerardo Parra decided to spice things up for everybody involved in the top of the seventh after he took offense to a high and inside pitch from Hong Chih Kuo.

The pitch in question (below) sailed on Kuo up and in after A.J. Ellis clearly set up on the outside corner. Parra obviously took offense to the pitch immediately, staring at Kuo and grabbing his crotch, though Kuo himself didn’t seem to care or notice.

My thoughts? Parra clearly wasn’t thinking at all. Obviously he might not know that Kuo went on the disabled list with the yips and that he has been quite bad for the entire year, but he could know that hitting a batter for no reason whatsoever in the top of the seventh inning while ahead by one run is less than logical.

Idiot.

Apparently though, on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight, Chris Singleton and Mark Mulder thought Parra was justified, which reinforces the point that players are usually idiots and should rarely be used as analysts.

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After Parra hit a home run off Kuo later in the at-bat was when the real trouble started though, as he pimped the homer, stared down Kuo while rounding the bases, and jawed a bit with Ellis.

I may have taken a few liberties with the GIF interpretation of the events. Maybe.

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As expected, the Dodgers dugout was none too happy with the events that transpired and jawed with Matt Williams, and Clayton Kershaw in particular was quite animated.

Welp, if nothing else, this just gave me a damn good reason to watch tomorrow’s game.