Matt Holliday appeared to have a legitimate beef with umpire Joe West after a called third strike ended Holliday's at-bat in the seventh inning Tuesday night. But regardless of West's mistake on balls and strikes, along with his reputation for having a short fuse, the fault lies with Holliday for continuing to argue with West, who ejected him from the game with much on the line.

Watch the scene unfold:

It was a big call, considering the St. Louis Cardinals were clinging to a 1-0 lead against the Milwaukee Brewers and Holliday is one of the Cards' top run producers. In addition, Holliday was working on a streak of reaching base in 45 straight games to start the 2015 season — already a National League record — and was creeping up on Derek Jeter's major league record of 53 games to start a season. Ted Williams' all-time record (not necessarily to start a season) is 74 straight games.

Holliday, already 0 for 3 after the strikeout, would not get another chance even if the Brewers had extended the game beyond the top of the ninth inning, or even if the Cardinals happened to bat around again and bring Holliday's spot back to the plate (which they did not).

The Cardinals won 1-0. According to MLB's Gameday, West's call on the fifth pitch by rookie Tyler Cravy was inside:

Not a strike, but instead a nice frame by Jonathan Lucroy, who doesn't have great framing stats in 2015 a great reputation for framing. Lucroy was rated among the best a season ago.

On the video, Holliday could be overheard arguing with West that he was giving Cravy a wide plate all night. Umpires usually give players a little bit of latitude on arguing balls and strikes, even though it's expressly forbidden, and West did this time. Holliday just wouldn't stop complaining. Cardinals manager Mike Matheny also was ejected during the scene. It's a bitter way to end a marvelous streak.

No matter how much we'd like to sometimes, there's no mechanism for throwing an umpire out of the game. Not even Joe West.