David Wells approached the home plate umpire Saturday after giving up a home run.The Padres pitcher argued balls and strikes, was told to return to the mound, then got ejected for coming back to argue more.
Finally, he ended his day with the childish behavior of throwing the ball against the netting behind home plate.
Greg Maddux spent Sunday arguing balls and strikes with the plate umpire. It’s obvious they’re not calling pitches off the plate strikes for him any more.
When Marcus Giles struck out to end Sunday’s 5-4 loss to Atlanta on a called strike off the plate, ESPN announcer Jon Miller said, “Those were the pitches Maddux wanted all night to be strikes.”
The unfortunate question now is: Are the Padres becoming whiners?
Perhaps that should be deferred to other teams.
The Florida Marlins certainly tired of watching Padres leadoff batter Brian Giles draw walks against them. Arguably, a lot of the pitches called balls were the same ones Wells and Maddux were begging for to be strikes.
“Brian Giles is a product of the system,” TV analyst Tommy Hutton said on FSN Florida. “I guarantee you if a few of those borderline pitches would be called strikes, he’d start swinging more.”
Maddux and Wells are being squeezed much more lately, not unlike all other pitchers. But as soon as the umpires start calling those pitches strikes, it’s certainly going to impact Brian Giles’ approach at the plate.
1 comment:
Your really being hard on the Padres. What's the deal. Aren't they are 1st place?
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