Bryce Harper and Matt Williams were ejected from Wednesday’s Nationals-Yankees game, exactly a week after the tandem was tossed from a road game against the Braves. This time the ejection was the result of an overzealous umpire.
Harper was batting in the bottom of the third and home plate umpire Marvin Hudson called a low strike on him. Harper thought the pitch was low and said so. Meanwhile, Williams started getting on Hudson from the dugout, leading Hudson to yell back. While Hudson was dealing with Williams, Harper stepped out of the box, which goes against MLB’s new pace of play rules.
Hudson told Harper to get back in the box, and Harper was defiant and told Hudson he’d rather get fined. Hudson tossed Harper as a result, and then he tossed Williams who came out to yell at the ump.
Below are Harper’s comments on the matter:
Here's the long version of Harper talking about getting ejected by Marvin Hudson. pic.twitter.com/vki9omxWo1
— Andrew Simon (@AndrewSimonMLB) May 21, 2015
After the game, which the Nats won 3-2, Hudson said the ejection of Harper had nothing to do with the batter’s box.
“One thing led to another and I had to run him. I had to eject him. … Had nothing to do with the (batter’s) box,” Hudson told a pool reporter via CSN’s Mark Zuckerman.
You can see last week’s ejection here.
