AJ Hinch was ejected in the first inning of a spring training game on Friday and thinks the way umpire Angel Hernandez handled things was “ridiculous.”
Hinch spoke after his Houston Astros beat the St Louis Cardinals 5-0 in a spring game and shared his side of what happened. The Astros manager says Hernandez admitted to him in a previous conversation that he gets four calls wrong a game. Hinch was upset about the way Hernandez was calling balls and strikes for pitcher Forrest Whitley in the top half of the first and addressed it between innings. He then felt Hernandez intentionally made a bad call on the first pitch to George Springer in the bottom half of the inning, and yelled that Hernandez had “used all four.” Hernandez tossed him in response.
“The fact that he wanted to throw me out in a spring training game is pretty ridiculous,” Hinch said after the game. “He’s known for overreaction a little bit. When you argue balls and strikes, you get thrown out. I get it. As it escalated, he said some condescending things that are inappropriate and unprofessional.”
Here’s the video:
AJ Hinch on his fiery early ejection tonight pic.twitter.com/S5bhS5tP2a
— Hunter Atkins (@HunterAtkins35) March 16, 2019
Outside of maybe Joe West, there is no umpire we write about more for his actions than Angel Hernandez. He was called “horrible” after his atrocious game in the playoffs last year, and he seems to be the target of criticism more often than not. He’s bad at his job and really does not deserve to be umpiring MLB games.
