Javy Baez thought he had drawn a walk. Instead, umpire Phil Cuzzi rung him up on a 3-2 curveball that was clearly below the zone -- and then tossed him from the game as soon as Baez objected to the mistake.
Baez told reporters after the Tigers' 3-1 win over the Giants on Monday in which he was ejected in the bottom of the fifth that all he said to Cuzzi was, "I'm looking for that pitch. It's not a f**king strike."
"And then he said, 'Don't point at it. Walk out.' And I said, 'What do you mean, walk out? I'm asking you something,' and then he just threw me out," Baez said.
At that point, Baez turned around to have it out with Cuzzi and had to be restrained by third base coach Joey Cora and teammate Gleyber Torres, who was on the on-deck circle.
"It's not even about the call," Baez said. "It's about how he treated me. I'm not an animal. We can talk. We can argue. And that's it. If he would've told me, 'OK, I missed it,' I would've f**king shut up and gone out there, because we're competing. I know he's not perfect, but don't treat me like that."
Baez said that he's "had strikes called before that are not in the zone and I don't even get mad about it" -- because "I know the umpire's human." His issue with Cuzzi is that "he just didn't let me express. Didn't let me ask him a question. After I got pissed that he threw me out for no reason, I'm gonna treat you the same way."
"If they want to take it personally, we take it personally, too," he said. "But what can we say? They need to do their job and focus on doing their job. That doesn't (have to) do anything with throwing me out. Now I gotta pay a fine."
Cuzzi's mistake and Baez's ejection lit a bit of a fire under the Tigers. The next three hitters -- Kerry Carpenter, Torres and Andy Ibañez -- loaded the bases and then Riley Greene drove in two with a single to stake the Tigers to a 3-0 lead they wouldn't relinquish.
Baez was happy for that -- but "still pissed" afterward about the altercation with Cuzzi.
"Just, don't treat me like that, or anybody," he said.
