A.J. Hinch received his first ejection as manager of the Tigers in Thursday's 13-10 loss to the Angels, and he was none too pleased with the ruling. In particular, he was none too pleased with crew chief Hunter Wendelstedt.
With the Tigers holding a 9-2 lead in the top of the fifth -- yeah, it was one of those games -- home plate umpire Quinn Wolcott mistook catcher interference against the Tigers for a foul ball off the bat of Justin Upton. Upton and Angels manager Joe Maddon protested, which was all good with Hinch. They were in the right.
That's when things got hairy. Rather than reviewing the play immediately, Wolcott engaged in a long conversation at home plate with Upton and Maddon, to the point where Wendelstedt came in from second. Meanwhile, Manning was forced to stand around and wait. Wendelstedt eventually went to the headset and quickly overturned the call, but not before more than three minutes of dead time. Hinch felt the Angels were icing his pitcher.
"It's unacceptable," said Hinch. "I thought it was handled wrong. When the play happened they called a foul ball, which was a miscall. I don't blame Justin Upton for arguing, I don't blame Joe Maddon for coming out and having what should have been a brief discussion with the home plate umpire. They go to the headset, we have a process. Hunter at second base came in really late, I don't know why the continued conversation. I don't have a problem with Joe coming out, but we're icing the pitcher there on a reviewable play where there's a process put in place to speed up the game when there's a discrepancy on a call like this."
And that's when things really got hairy. After Wendelstedt finished the review, Hinch came out to voice his displeasure with how things had been handled. The veteran Wendelstedt took that personally. Next thing he knew, Hinch had been tossed from the game.
"When I came out to talk to Hunter after the three and a half minute delay, it was to tell him that I thought he was wrong," Hinch said. "And then when I was past the (third base) line going back to the dugout, he kept screaming that it was bullsh*t that I was putting it on him and then he tosses me out of the game -- and that's the definition of bullsh*t.
"It was handled wrong from the beginning, it was handled wrong at the end, and unfortunately that's the way the inning played out."
The wait-around didn't bother Manning. In fact, he said he "caught a little second wind" and responded by retiring Jo Adell before the Tigers went to the bullpen to get the final out of the inning. Manning said he appreciated Hinch sticking up for him.
"After being iced like that a little bit, it was nice that A.J. got fired up and it kind of fired me up a little bit," he said. "I wish I was able to get the final out of that inning, but it all worked out."
But things quickly unraveled from there. Detroit's bullpen surrendered six runs in the sixth, one in the seventh, three in the eighth and one in the ninth to turn a 10-2 lead into a 13-10 loss. It was the final blow of a homestand in which the Tigers lost five of six games.
"This loss stings," said Hinch. "It's a bad loss. We were in control of the game and we couldn't end at-bats positively fast enough. We kept rolling their lineup around and ended up in a nasty situation of just handing the ball to the next guy and not being able to come away with outs. We let this one get away. It's completely on us."
