TORONTO — The seed was planted in the first inning. After walking Oakland Athletics leadoff hitter Matt Joyce on five pitches, two of them sinkers he thought were strikes, Marcus Stroman threw his arms out and paced off the mound toward home plate umpire Will Little to inquire about the strike zone. Little indicated he believed the pitches were off the plate; Stroman shook his head, displeased. The Blue Jays bench, no doubt, began to chirp. At the end of the inning, as Stroman walked back to his dugout, he exchanged further dialogue with Little.
Flash forward to the fifth and there was Stroman, livid, veins bulging from his neck as he tried to get anywhere near Little to give him a piece of his mind. Little had just ejected Stroman from the ballgame after the Blue Jays starter’s sixth walk of the afternoon. Little had already ejected Stroman’s manager, John Gibbons, two pitches earlier. And immediately after throwing Stroman out, Little chose to eject his catcher, Russell Martin, too.
Eventually, the Blue Jays went on to win, 8-4. Oakland reliever Liam Hendriks walked the bases loaded in the 10th, before Steve Pearce lined a full-count fastball over the left-field wall for a game-winning grand slam.
And that’s a great result for the Blue Jays, especially considering they were in a fairly tough spot to succeed in extras, having already emptied their bench and run through five relievers.
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“It was an emotional game,” said Blue Jays bench coach DeMarlo Hale, who took over as manager after Gibbons was ejected. “And there were some balls and strikes that were questionable.”
What anyone did to deserve being thrown out is something only Little knows. Stroman, Martin and the Blue Jays had taken umbrage with Little’s strike zone all afternoon, but so too had several Athletics players. In fact, Oakland had a run-in with Little over balls and strikes during a game just two months prior, when the 33-year-old umpire tossed Athletics manager Bob Melvin and second baseman Jed Lowrie, who had never before been ejected in his major-league career.
Several players from both teams took issue with calls throughout Thursday afternoon’s game and, looking at Little’s calls on the afternoon, it appeared both sides had fair reason to complain.
But it was Stroman and the Blue Jays who paid the price for Little losing his patience. In the fifth, after Stroman walked Bruce Maxwell on a borderline pitch that cradled the outside edge of the strike zone, Stroman took a long look in at Little, who removed his mask and stepped out from behind the plate. Stroman appeared to say something under his breath, which was enough of an offence in Little’s eyes to have him removed from the game. As Martin turned around to ask Little why he threw Stroman out, the catcher was summarily tossed as well.
“I turned around and I’m like, ‘You know, you didn’t have to throw him out right there.’ Probably threw an F-bomb in there. Just one. Not multiple,” Martin said. “But, like, [Little] took his mask off and he looked like he was ready to do something. And any time an umpire steps towards you and takes his mask off, it’s never a good sign. It’s kind of like he was asking for, I don’t know, it’s like he was instigating almost.”
That set off the fracas, which ended with an extremely agitated Stroman being led back to the Blue Jays dugout by Hale. Martin remained on the field to have some very tense words with Little, who looked down at his lineup card as the catcher let him have it.
Gibbons, who was tossed moments earlier, at least somewhat earned his ejection, as he was barking aggressively from the bench about the strike zone. But Stroman did not appear to do anything antagonizing prior to his ejection, nor did Martin, who barely got a word out before he was tossed. Little, on the other hand, certainly didn’t seem interested in de-escalating the situation.
“There were quite a few questionable calls. So, I questioned. It just seemed like [Little] kind of let the crowd get to him a little bit and kind of fed off that,” Martin said. “I didn’t feel like at that moment it was the proper call. I didn’t feel like it was necessary. There was no drama at that moment. He kind of created the drama there.
“It’s definitely frustrating when the umpires get in the way.”
Those events greatly changed the course of Toronto’s afternoon. Stroman wasn’t at his best Thursday, walking a season-high six and allowing base runners in every inning he pitched. But he was mostly able to work his way out of the jams he created, aside from the first inning when a pair of walks and a ground-ball single all came around to score. But those three runs were all he allowed.
Stroman had thrown 90 pitches at the time of his ejection, and was getting outs when he needed them. Coming off a start in which he threw 117 pitches, it’s not hard to imagine him staying in the game for at least another inning if he hadn’t been tossed. But the ejection forced the Blue Jays to dip into their bullpen earlier than they would have liked, which can have a residual effect on the unit’s freshness in the club’s upcoming series with the Los Angeles Angels this weekend.
Meanwhile, the Blue Jays clawed their way back from that three-run deficit over the course of the afternoon. Josh Donaldson hit a solo shot off Oakland starter Sean Manaea in the first, and Kendrys Morales added one of his own in the fifth. In the sixth, Jose Bautista’s leadoff double came around on a two-out Justin Smoak single, tying the game.
But in the eighth, Blue Jays reliever Ryan Tepera put a couple runners on with a single and a walk. He got within an out of escaping the jam, but gave up a single to Marcus Semien which gave Oakland a one-run lead.
Morales erased that in the ninth with his second homer of the day, sending the game to extras. That’s where Pearce came through with his ninth homer of the season, giving Toronto its second walk-off victory in 36 hours.
After the game, Stroman refused to comment on Little’s work behind the plate, saying, “I want to make my next start.” But he did indicate he battled his recent blister issues at times Thursday, which, coupled with a host of borderline pitches that didn’t go his way, led to the six walks he issued. Refining his command will be a focus for Stroman between now and his next outing.
“I struggled with a little bit of feel early on,” Stroman said. “But, overall, my body felt good. My stuff felt good. I just have to be in the strike zone more throughout the course of the game.
“It’s just frustrating because I don’t walk guys,” he added. “That’s one of the things I pride myself on — not walking guys. Being in the strike zone. Making guys beat me. Putting the ball in play. It’s frustrating when I walk six guys. That’s not me at all. I’m an aggressive guy, I pitch in the zone, and that’s what I need to get back to going into the next start.”
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