TORONTO – It was, quite literally, a borderline pitch.
With one out and one on in the bottom of the seventh inning, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. took a one-one breaking ball from Houston Astros reliever Hector Rondon on the outside corner. Sometimes umpires call this pitch a ball, sometimes they call it a strike. To home plate umpire Mike Estabrook it looked like a strike. To Guerrero Jr. it did not.
“I know my strike zone very well,” he said through interpreter Hector Lebron.
Frustrated, Guerrero Jr. took a short walk away from home plate in an attempt to reset. He walked back to the box with his hands on his hips then flashed a grin as he settled back in to prepare for Rondon’s next offering.
This time the pitch was outside – everyone would agree on that – but Guerrero Jr. swung anyways and missed. Strike three. Or, in his mind, strike two.
As he turned back toward the home dugout, Guerrero Jr. pointed at Estabrook and appeared to say “that’s you” in reference to the called strike two. From his spot behind home plate, Estabrook told Guerrero Jr. to stop complaining. But Guerrero Jr. was convinced that one-one pitch had been a ball and he wanted Estabrook to know as much. So?
“I just said it again.”
Moments later, Estabrook had tossed Guerrero Jr. for his first ejection as a major-leaguer. That much is relatively straightforward, but the aftermath of the ejection is far more interesting. After all, that one-one pitch won’t be the last borderline call that goes against Guerrero Jr., so the Toronto Blue Jays want him to learn from this moment.
“These are learning lessons,” Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo said afterward.
“There’s no way to win when you argue balls and strikes.”
Or, as hitting coach Guillermo Martinez said, “Be patient. Keep playing the game. Don’t let anyone else dictate the at-bat.”
Eventually, if the Blue Jays get where they’re hoping to go, there will be ball-strike calls of far greater importance. Some of those will go against the Blue Jays. The risk of getting tossed from a game simply isn’t worth the reward of voicing your displeasure. At some point, Guerrero Jr. will have to learn that lesson, so the Blue Jays hope it sunk in Friday.
“The emotions got the best of him,” bench coach Dave Hudgens said. “He’s just got to step out of the box, take a deep breath and just regroup. That’s stuff you learn as you go. You get that experience.”
“That’s a lesson you learn in the big-leagues. The umpires give him a little rope and then he said something else and then it’s like ‘all right, take the rest of the night off.’”
Two innings earlier, Guerrero Jr. made an error that sparked an Astros rally, letting a catchable ball bounce off his glove. Though he said the frustration he showed at the plate was unrelated to anything else, he acknowledged earlier this week that his fielding remains a work in progress. For the Blue Jays, the relationship between Guerrero Jr.’s bat and glove will be worth watching. Ideally, struggles in one phase of his game wouldn’t impact another.
As for Estabrook, the Blue Jays had issues with his zone all night, but there were no complaints about the way he handled the ejection.
“He did it the right way,” Montoyo said.
“He wasn’t following Vladdy to throw him out. That would freakin’ bother me, but he gave him a chance and Vladdy came back and said something else and that’s how he got thrown out. Mike did it the right way.”
Immediately after the game, Montoyo spoke to Guerrero Jr. about the ejection. While there’s little to be gained from chirping an umpire, Montoyo understands that his players will occasionally get frustrated.
“That’s going to happen,” Montoyo said.
“He’s a young kid who wants to win. He’s playing to win and he felt like he had to say something. Honestly, I’m OK with that.”
As Montoyo said, it would be unfair to expect any 20-year-old to be a finished product – either athletically or emotionally. With that in mind, the ejection’s understandable. The next time a call goes against him, he’ll have the chance to show his coaches he hears what they are saying.
“I’ll learn from this the things that I need to learn,” Guerrero Jr. said.
“I’ll try to control myself a little bit, but it is what it is and we’re just going to move forward.”
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