Gone batty: David Ortiz ejected after arguing balls and strikes, destroys bullpen phone
Boston Red Sox designed hitter David Ortiz officially flipped his lid on Saturday night.
After striking out in the seventh inning against Jairo Asencio, Ortiz turned his attention to home plate umpire Tim Timmons to argue a 3-0 strike call earlier in the at-bat. To Timmons' credit, he let Ortiz show him up by pointing to his helmet — indicating he felt the pitch in question was too high — and give him an earful all the way back to the dugout without reacting. In most cases, Ortiz's actions constitute an immediate ejection, but Timmons was willing to move on had he dropped his case peacefully.
Instead, Ortiz went bonkers and ended up smashing the bullpen phone in the visiting dugout at Camden Yards into smithereens with his bat (see: 1:22 in the video).
Ortiz's violent meltdown didn't really fall under the entertainment category. It was actually very dangerous and a little scary as shrapnel from the bat and phone flew all over the dugout. In fact, some of the shrapnel nearly took a chunk out of teammate Dustin Pedroia.
Pedroia was nearly a victim of Ortiz's bat shrapnel in the dugout. That was a pretty significant eruption by Ortiz that was nearly costly.
— Alex Speier (@alexspeier) July 28, 2013
And that didn't sit well with the veteran second baseman.
Cooler heads prevailed in that case, and thankfully nobody in the dugout was injured as a result of Ortiz's recklessness.
It was at this point that Timmons finally gave him the thumb, which was met with this very scary look.
Woah. Easy there, big fella.
With the dust and particles now settled, I think it's safe to say a suspension will be coming Ortiz's way in the coming days. It probably won't be a lengthy ban, but it's a good time to send another reminder that such violent outbursts can't and won't be tolerated by Major League Baseball.
Fortunately for the Red Sox, a suspension is the only thing they have to worry about right now. That's a much better outcome than setting a timetable for Pedroia's return had one of those pieces of shrapnel found its way into his eye.
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