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A sometimes-irreverent look at Detroit's Boys of Summer, the Tigers, as they try to return to the top of the American League Central.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Umpires collaborate on call; pair of Orioles ejected for objecting


Friday’s game between the Orioles and Tigers had a little bit of everything — monumental home runs and defensive plays.

The most bizarre play of the evening, though, was an overturn of the original call on the field to start the fifth inning, a sequence of events that resulted in the ejection of Orioles manager Buck Showalter and first baseman Mark Reynolds.

“I’m not going to get into that,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. “Obviously, from where I was, the guy looked quite a ways off the bag. I don’t go out unless I think that. I’ll leave it at that.”

Rookie Manny Machado fielded Jhonny Peralta’s grounder at third, and his throw across the diamond appeared to beat the runner to the bag, but Reynolds had to stretch to field it. Peralta and first base coach Tom Brookens argued to first-base umpire Jeff Kellogg that Reynolds’ foot came off the bag.

“We just want to get the play right and that’s what we did there,” said Kellogg, who asked for help from the rest of the crew. “I went to the home plate umpire, who was coming up the line ... I knew he was going to have a look at the edge of that bag coming up the line.

Home plate umpre Timmons agreed, and the crew changed the call, prompting Reynolds to fire his glove into the ground, and Showalter to storm out of the dugout.

“From when I saw the throw coming across, I knew that the throw was going to pull the first baseman that way. And at that point, that's when I actually stopped and dropped anchor and looked for the foot,” Timmons said. “And when I saw the foot come up, the heel and the toe was on the bag. .. At the time he was going to glove the ball, when I saw the bottom of the whole foot and the foot dropped down onto the ground and I had daylight, I had him off the bag.”

Ruled a throwing error on Machado, it became irrelevant when Peralta was erased on a fielder’s choice, and the inning ended when Austin Jackson was caught stealing.

After the game, neither the ejected player nor the manager were happy, Reynolds saying, "It's almost like 'screw the Orioles' by the umpires out there."

Here are Showalter's comments from his postgame interview with MASN.

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