Torii Hunter went off on umpire Joe West for making a poor call to end Monday’s Twins-Tigers game and not appealing it.
The Twins lost 4-0 but had something brewing with two outs in the ninth after getting consecutive singles to bring up Hunter and chase starter David Price from the game. Hunter had a 1-2 count against closer Joe Nathan and checked his swing on a slider away, but West called him out to end the game.
Not only did replays show that Hunter did not swing, but what was frustrating was that West had the opportunity to appeal to a crew-mate who had a better view and chose not to.
“You know I didn’t swing,” Hunter said after the game via Twins reporter Rhett Bollinger. “He gave me no explanation. I think he had dinner reservations or a concert to play in. That was terrible. All I ask, everybody asks, we come out and do our job every day. That’s what I do, I come ready to play, do my job, I battle at the plate. We ask you to do your job as well. And Joe West needs to do his job. And he didn’t do it well.”
Most home plate umpires would defer to someone else — like first base umpire Kerwin Danley in this case — but West did not.
“I have no idea why he didn’t check,” Hunter said. “He just walked off, so obviously he knew he was wrong.”
We appreciate Hunter’s reference to West’s country music background by saying he had a concert to go play in. As for West, he explained himself after the game and said Hunter was mad because he didn’t deliver.
“I thought he swung, so I said he swung,” West said. “They’re all great players, and any time you get called out at the end of the game on something like that, they’re going to be upset, so I understand that.”
Whether it’s punching out Hunter in this case or taking runs away from teams in the past, we’ve had several issues like this with West over the years. Even a few weeks ago he tossed A.J. Pierzynski from a spring training game for seemingly no reason. He should have been fired a long time ago, mostly just for being so stubborn. For more on West, read why I said he needed to be fired … four years ago!
