Holliday and Matheny Ejected

As much as Lance Lynn’s performance on the mound entertained for the St. Louis Cardinals, there was an even greater amount of frustration from Matt Holliday, who was ejected in the 7th inning by home plate umpire Joe West in Tuesday’s 1-0 victory over Milwaukee.

“Well, I obviously disagreed with the call,” began Holliday. “Voiced my–that I didn’t think it was a strike, like I have done a million times. I didn’t say any cross words to the umpire. I didn’t say any cuss words. I didn’t say or call him any names and apparently he didn’t like that I was even mentioning balls and strikes–and that was it.”

Despite his protest, with it being late in a one-run game, Holliday did not expect to thrown out of the contest.

“I was surprised. Yeah, I was a veteran player and you usually have the right to voice your displeasure in ball-strike situations. As long as you don’t get vulgar or say anything that crosses the line then that’s one of those things you just move on. Apparently that wasn’t the case.”

Mike Matheny quickly raced onto the field when West ejected Holliday and received an early exit as well.

“A tight game like that–every pitch, every out is so important,” said Matheny. “They get rung up on a pitch they don’t think is a strike, they’re going to have some emotion. We don’t want to take them out of that. Unfortunately, it went as far as it did–I didn’t think he was going to get tossed. He was back towards the dugout and hopefully, I thought he was getting his word in and next thing I know, we lost him. That was a shame.”

“He threw him out because he was tired of listening to him, I suppose,” said Matheny, who echoed Holliday’s thoughts that a veteran should’ve been allowed to have more of a say in that situation.

“It just shocked me that he came out of the game right there,” added Matheny. “I kind of watch body language and I can see when they’re (umpires) are just about at their end and it didn’t look like it. Next thing you know, we’ve got our three-hole hitter with a pretty nice streak going right now tossed out of the game. I don’t expect them to give extra rope for things like streaks–but I know Matt wasn’t swearing at him. That usually holds some value too.”

Matheny also doesn’t have a habit of swearing.

“Yeah, I don’t know exactly what it was but he didn’t like that either,” said Matheny of his ejection. “That’s not a game I want to come out of at that point, as well. But I just was shocked he was tossed at that point.”

With the ejection, Holliday also had his streak of safely reaching base end at 45 games to start the season.

“Yeah, but my spot in the order didn’t come up again so it doesn’t really matter.”

photo credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports