Game Two of the 2014 NLDS (Giants v. Nationals) was quite the epic showdown.
In fact, the six hour and 23 minute marathon – capped off by Brandon Belt’s solo home run in the 18th inning – set a new record for length of a postseason game (the 18 innings tied the previous record). And before we go on, just think about that for a second – they played two full full-length baseball games in one night. Yeesh.
But long before Belt’s game-winning dinger, some other unusual business went down, specifically in the bottom of the 10th inning. Let’s take a look.
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After working things up to a 3-1 count to lead off the bottom of the 10th, Asdrubal Cabrera gets a little fired up when he thinks strike two was really ball four (frankly it was a strike, but it was sufficiently borderline, that the outrage is at least understandable).
And then, when would-be-ball-four is called strike three, things start to breakdown:
Cabrera gets tossed for arguing balls and strikes, and then Manager Matt Williams makes his way out to give the ump a piece of his mind, before getting tossed himself.
Although, is that really why he was tossed?
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Take a closer look at the video, or check out the .gif below.
From this, it’s pretty clear that Williams asks the umpire to toss him out of the game.
That time Nationals manager Matt Williams asked to be thrown out of the game. pic.twitter.com/iqCI6iS4ee
— Baseball is Fun (@flippingbats) February 23, 2017
Although I’m almost positive Williams was simply asking to be tossed to show support for his player and team, it is truly odd to see it play out right before our eyes. We often suspect managers of this, but rarely do we basically have confirmation.
Unfortunately, his efforts were for naught, as the Giants won the game eight long innings later. But hey, give the guy credit for trying something!
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