Bryce Harper doesn’t feel ejection was necessary: ‘He kinda just was like, ‘Eh”
DENVER — Bryce Harper, in his telling, was just trying to have a conversation.
The next thing he knew, his night was over.
Through the eyes of the two-time MVP, that’s how Harper’s interaction with home plate umpire Brian Walsh in the first inning, which ended in his second straight Coors Field ejection, went on Friday night. Harper took exception to an 0-1 Ty Blach sinker that seemed like a 50-50 call right around the low and inside corner of the strike zone. He and Walsh went back and forth after the call; after Harper chased a curveball for strike three, he slammed his helmet into the ground, and that’s where things began to escalate.
Crew Chief Vic Carapazza told a pool reporter after the game that the “equipment violation” constituted a warning for Harper, and that, along with the arguing itself, it “absolutely” contributed to his ejection — though the boot came several seconds after the helmet slam.
Harper saw it differently.
“Obviously, I spiked my helmet. But that wasn’t frustration from the call,” Harper told reporters, including The Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Alex Coffey, after the game, saying he instead slammed his helmet in frustration over the chase. “I just kinda asked him, ‘Hey, I don’t believe that was a strike, but where do you have it? Just so I know.’ And he kinda just was like, ‘Eh.’ And I was just like, ‘No, like, where do you have it? I just wanna know where you had it.’ And then he threw me out.”
Harper lamented the fact that the game, in which the Phillies scattered just seven hits and two runs across 11 innings in a tough loss, could have changed if he’d been able to remain in the lineup.
Phillies manager Rob Thomson came out to argue and to get Harper out of the fray upon the ejection. He seemed even more impassioned than the first baseman was, but the skipper remained in the game.
“I did think that it was kind of a quick trigger on Harp,” Thomson said. “I don’t think he was cursing him out or anything like that [which Harper corroborated]. He kinda spiked his helmet and just kept talking to him. And I guess he decided to throw him out.
“I didn’t really get a full explanation from the umpire or from Harp. But I know that he did tell me that he wasn’t planning on getting thrown out.”
Carapazza, though, seemed to see the length of Harper’s leash opposite of how the manager saw it.
“Brian [Walsh] gave him a long leash,” Carapazza said. “He kept him in the game, and Bryce just kept arguing about balls and strikes … If you continue to talk about pitches [after the helmet spike], then Brian had to handle it. So that’s it really.”
It was all somewhat of a blur. Harper was ejected last year in Denver after storming out of the dugout and charging at Rockies pitcher Jake Bird, igniting a benches-clearing fracas. Friday’s flare followed far fewer fireworks. Harper never moved from his spot in the left-handed batters box — until, that is, Walsh effectively made him do so by throwing him out.
“I’m not trying to get thrown out in the first inning in Colorado,” Harper said. “Obviously … I didn’t even feel like it kinda happened. Like, I was kinda in here just sitting, and I was like, ‘Man, I feel like I should be out there.’ Obviously when I scream and I yell, you guys know. I mean, I get upset sometimes and show my emotion and stuff like that. But I really just — I wasn’t that upset about the whole situation. It’s the first inning. You know?”
Harper said he’s generally able to have dialogue with many umpires across the league about calls with which he disagrees, naming John Tumpane, Alan Porter, Pat Hobert and even Carapazza specifically.
“There’s professionals in this league, and there’s guys that are really good at their job and they understand it,” Harper said. “This [umpire No.] 120, he didn’t understand it.
“So, it is what it is. But just bummed out we lost that game. And like I said, it could’ve been something different if I’m in the lineup. Maybe not. But you just never know.”
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