Kansas City Royals manager Mike Matheny ejected in the second inning against Yankees
Kansas City Royals manager Mike Matheny earned the 19th ejection of his managerial career in the second inning of Friday night’s series opener against the New York Yankees at Kauffman Stadium.
Matheny was ejected for arguing with third-base umpire Manny Gonzalez in the bottom of the second inning after Bobby Witt Jr. was called out at third base after successfully outrunning a rundown. Matheny also made contact with Gonzalez as the two bumped chests while arguing on the field.
“I saw our player outrun their player and then (he) knocked him off the bag,” Matheny said. “I watched again on video and it looked exactly like I saw it the first time. He blew it. I mean, that’s a big run. The fact, too, I was concerned he’d got hurt. ... You’d like to see those calls get made right.”
The ejection was Matheny’s first since May 23, 2021.
Witt, who hit a one-out double to left field, got caught breaking early for third base on a steal attempt with Edward Olivares at the plate.
Yankees pitcher Nestor Cortes stepped off the rubber and ran at Witt. Cortes then threw behind the runner to second baseman Gleyber Torres. Torres then chased Witt, who out-sprinted Torres to third base.
“I was trying to get a jump to steal third,” Witt said. “He paused a little bit longer than I anticipated, and I got picked off there in the first place. It shouldn’t have happened.”
Torres chose to try to tag Witt instead of throwing to third base where Torres’ teammate DJ LeMahieu was awaiting a throw.
Witt went into his slide late, but beat Torres’ tag.
However, Torres’ momentum carried him over the bag and into the back of Witt. Both Witt and Torres slid over and off the bag.
“I’m going towards third and I can kind of feel him not close to me, so I slid later,” Witt said. “I kind of just brace myself with my foot, brace myself with my knee, leg, and I’m 100 percent sure I could’ve stayed on the base without him kind of coming into me. I guess it is what it is. That’s baseball.”
Witt twisted around in an attempt to reach back to the bag with his other hand, but Gonzalez ruled Witt out for coming off the bag.
Matheny immediately emerged from the dugout to dispute the call on the field. Matheny said the explanation given to him was that both players had the right to the bag and both were overrunning it, which Matheny characterized as “just not accurate.”
While making his case in an animated fashion, Matheny’s chest bumped Gonzalez before crew chief Jeff Nelson got between them.
“I honestly thought we were sitting there having our conversation, and he kept wanting to move,” Matheny said. “I felt like he was doing the moving towards me as I was trying to continue to figure out how do we fix this, do what we’ve got to do to fix this and get it right. That’s all we want, just get the call right.”
Olivares singled in that at-bat, a hit that would’ve scored Witt from third and cut the Royals’ deficit to one run. That realization prompted boos to rain down from the crowd at Kauffman Stadium.
With Michael A. Taylor batting, Olivares advanced on a passed ball and scored on Taylor’s RBI single to pull the Royals within a run, 3-2, with two outs in the second inning.
Matheny called it “just a shame” that the call had that much impact. Instead of being 3-2, the inning could’ve ended 3-3 if everything else went the same.
“It was just tough to have that in that situation,” Witt said. “We had a base hit the next at-bat. I was frustrated at myself, but then obviously frustrated at what happened. I didn’t think it was the right call. I didn’t know the rules and everything. But just from what I heard, I didn’t think, still don’t think it’s right.
“Skip had my back, went out there and argued for me. I guess it is what it is.”
The score stayed 3-2 until the seventh when the Yankees broke the game open with four runs. They tacked on five in the eighth, and the game was called due to thunderstorms and heavy rain after eight innings.
This story was originally published April 29, 2022 at 8:54 PM.
