Anthony Rendon did not say a word when umpire Marty Foster called him out on a borderline strike in the fourth inning of Saturday’s game against the Mets. He tossed his bat in displeasure and threw his head back, actions that do not qualify as “showing up the umpire” in the unwritten baseball lexicon. But Foster threw him out of the game anyway.
Crew chief Joe West, speaking on behalf of Foster and the rest of his crew, said there was more to the ejection than just that one pitch.
“The pitch prior to the strikeout, he walked completely out of the hitter’s circle, which the hitters aren’t allowed to do. Marty [Foster] said, ‘We got to play. You got to get back in there.’ Then when he called strike three, he threw the bat,” West said. “You have some options there, and Marty felt that what he did was showing him up worse than an equipment violation would have been, and that’s why he ejected him. You have to do something or he loses all respect from the players. I understand that he could have [not done anything], but he chose that this was the penalty for what he did. So it was more involved than just strikeout, throwing equipment.”
Dave Martinez hurried out to defend Rendon, and eventually, Foster tossed him, too. Rendon’s actions did not seem to warrant an ejection. Martinez, however, seemed determined to make a point. He got in Foster’s face. He pleaded, gesturing with his hands and pointing to the plate. At one point, Foster almost seemed determined to let Martinez holler himself out, but finally decided to eject him. That ejection decision was fairly straightforward.
When he pointed to the dugout, signaling Martinez was no longer welcome, the Nationals’ rookie manager went ballistic. He tossed his hat at the plate. He kicked the dirt around the left-handed batter’s box. He stormed off, unwilling to stop his stream of critiques on his walk to the dugout. Martinez had never been ejected before.
The whole thing amounted to a bubbling over of a few days’ frustration on the part of Martinez and his hitters — and a few innings of frustration with Foster. Most of the Nationals did not hide that.
“[Earlier chirping] shouldn’t have anything to do with it,” West said. “But there was more involved than one pitch and flipping the bat.”
The Nationals did plenty of earlier chirping as Foster gave Mets starter Steven Matz a generous strike zone through the early innings of Saturday’s game. In the first inning, he called Rendon out on strikes on a pitch that online strike trackers showed was inside. Bryce Harper, Ryan Zimmerman, Howie Kendrick and Pedro Severino all expressed varying degrees of displeasure with Foster calls in the early innings. When Foster called Rendon out on another borderline pitch in the fourth, Rendon did not get in his face or even say as much as Kendrick had.
Regardless, Rendon left the game anyway, replaced at third base by Matt Reynolds, recalled from Class AAA Syracuse Saturday morning. Martinez gave way to bench coach Chip Hale for the first time this season. Dusty Baker got ejected once in two seasons, a little slower to charge the umpire in protest — both ideologically and physically. Rendon had been ejected once before.
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