Ep. 38: The Full Nelson

Blue Jays Happy Hour

On Monday in Baltimore the Blue Jays jumped out to a 3-0 lead, but ultimately suffered death by 1,000 cuts — another Mitch White implosion, a Yusei Kikuchi appearance, Alejandro Kirk’s game-calling, an inopportune double play, more failure to take their chances, an utterly insane video-aided application of the blocking the plate rule, a ridiculous Rougned Odor slide, Trevor Richards — as the Orioles stormed back to score nine runs on just nine hits to win the third game of this four-game series by a score of 9-6. It was a frustrating affair, but not one without some fireworks — and I don’t just mean Bo Bichette’s fourth homer and seventh-through-tenth hits over the last two days. Still mad about a phantom ball call on Kevin Gausman on Monday night, the Blue Jays’ bench appeared to be giving an earful to home plate umpire (and crew chief) Jeff Nelson all night about balls and strikes. Frankly, Nelson’s calls didn’t seem especially egregious from a Jays perspective but — perhaps taking a cue from their fans on Twitter, who seemed angrily through with White and incensed by the use of Kikuchi (even though it was a game following a doubleheader day in which the team’s starter couldn’t even get out of the third!) — the team was in a particularly ornery mood. Ultimately this tension boiled over in Nelson’s ejection of manager John Schneider in the seventh, who got every penny of his money’s worth as he made sure to animatedly berate the umpire directly to his face prior to his exit down the tunnel. But not before another, altogether weirder situation. Orioles reliever Bryan Baker, who was in the Jays organization from 2018 — when he was acquired from Colorado in the Seunghwan Oh trade — until being claimed by Baltimore on waivers last winter, sparked a bench-clearing incident after looking into the Jays dugout and jawing at his ex-teammates, and Teoscar Hernández in particular, after recording the final out of the top of the seventh — an inning in which he’d given up a run! (Albeit on a Hernández double play.) The typically mild-mannered Teoscar was especially angry, having to be restrained from approaching the Orioles’ players during the brief (and relatively mild) melee. “I guess he was mad because yesterday I hit a homer,” Hernández told reporters afterwards. “Every time he pitches against us he tries to make a show, but I’m not even paying attention to whatever he says. When I hit the ground ball he’s staring at me and saying, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ like I don’t know what happened. And then he strikes out Chapman and he turned into our dugout and started talking and pointing at me, saying that I was talking too much. But I wasn’t talking. And then he started walking (toward our dugout) and I just reacted.” “I mean, when he was here we were actually cool,” Teoscar added. “But I guess he has something in his mind.” Other Blue Jays were slightly more blunt. “I don’t think it was a Teo thing,” said Schneider — who showed impressive speed in being one of the first on the scene when Baker turned towards the third base side of the field. “I think it was Baker looking into our dugout like he has every time he’s pitched against us since he wasn’t part of our team, and I think our team reacted.” “I think guys were fed up with it,” he added.. “You can enjoy the moment, we understand that,” Vladimir Guerrero Jr. said. “If you strike out somebody you can celebrate. But when you stare at the person it’s kind of disrespectful. I don’t know, maybe you think you’re a superhero or something. Whatever it is. But yeah, it does cross a line.” “We believe if you’re looking at the dugout, you want problems,” he added. “You want us to react.” Some reasonable points there, though I suspect your mileage may vary depending on which team you support. Anyway, dumb game! Dumb game. Here’s the podcast we did about it before all those quotes were reported. Big one coming up on Wednesday!! Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com