The Los Angeles Dodgers spent the better part of eight innings on Thursday searching for any semblance of offense at Busch Stadium. Adam Wainwright scattered two hits over six shutout innings, and his home run was the reason the St. Louis Cardinals held a 2-0 lead after the second.
The much-maligned St. Louis bullpen completed three scoreless innings of work, allowing just one hit. They seemingly received a hand from home-plate umpire Marty Foster in the ninth inning. He rung up Adrian Gonzalez on a full-count pitch that clearly appeared to be outside the strike zone.
Gonzalez expressed his disagreement with the call before making his way to the dugout. Chase Utley followed with a one-out base hit, and while Yasmani Grandal was being announced as a pinch-hitter, Foster ejected Gonzalez.
That prompted the veteran first baseman to come out of the dugout to confront Foster. Gonzalez explained his actions and interpretation of the strange sequence, via SportsNet LA:
“Leadoff guy gets on, being myself, a home run ties it up. So it’s a big at-bat, it’s a big pitch. I’m not a guy who takes too many pitches up there. Funniest thing is [Foster] told Dave (Roberts) afterwards that he’s been calling pitches off the plate all game, so he wasn’t going to change. Apparently, he agreed they were balls, but because he had been calling them (strikes), it’s ok to call them that. … It’s a big at-bat, a big pitch. I said something to him right there. When I went into the dugout, everyone was telling me it was pretty far off. At that point, I was saying a couple things but nothing offensive. Just explaining the game situation. When he looked in for the pinch-hitter, somebody else might have said something that triggered him to throw me out. I felt like I didn’t get thrown out because of something I said, so I might as well go out there and say more things.”
A pitch to Grandal that was nearly identical to what Gonzalez was called out on, was also deemed a strike by Foster. Grandal wound up striking out swinging, had some words for Foster, and was immediately ejected.
Foster is the same umpire who threw out Justin Turner for arguing balls and strikes at the end of a 2015 game at Busch Stadium.
