As we chronicled earlier, the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox do not like each other. The animosity runs so deep between the sides that commissioner Rob Manfred held a pregame conference call with the teams' management. Even so, no pregame warnings were issued, which seemed to leave the door open for Baltimore to retaliate following Chris Sale's aggressiveness on Tuesday night toward Manny Machado.
Yet almost no one believed Orioles starter Kevin Gausman intentionally hit Xander Bogaerts with a breaking ball early in Wednesday's game -- "almost" no one, because home-plate umpire Sam Holbrook proved to be an exception by ejecting Gausman.
Twitter, as it is wont to do, reacted. Here are some highlights:
Chris Sale doesn't get tossed for throwing a fastball behind Manny Machado. Kevin Gausman does get tossed for a HBP on a curveball. Huh?
— Jon Tayler (@JATayler) May 3, 2017
Agreed. This should be something where the crew can meet and get it fixed. https://t.co/TByRQxh0l6
— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) May 3, 2017
The Eck: "If I'm Sam Holbrook, I'm embarrassed right now."
— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) May 3, 2017
this entire BOS-BAL beef has been an utter embarrassment for baseball, from the upper management to umpires to managers to players
— Matt Snyder (@MattSnyderCBS) May 3, 2017
Baseball is pretty stupid sometimes. That ejection is one of those times.
— Mike Mutnansky (@MutWEEI) May 3, 2017
Did we just see Sam Holbrook, the plate umpire in Boston, eject Gausman after he hit Bogaerts with a curveball? Goodness, that's awful
— Erik Boland (@eboland11) May 3, 2017
#O's have right to be livid after 3 different Bos Ps have been throwing at Machado purposefully then Gausman accidentally HPB gets ejected
— Jim Bowden (@JimBowdenMLB) May 3, 2017
Baseball scribes can be cynical lads. If they collectively think Gausman wasn't aiming for Bogaerts -- and they seem to think that -- then he probably wasn't aiming for Bogaerts.
