Jesse Winker was ejected from the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays game on Saturday night. He was calmly tossed by home plate umpire Adam Hamari after he struck out during an at-bat in the eighth inning against Ryan Thompson. Let’s take a step back and see what led to Winker being upset after his strikeout that got him removed from the game.
Milwaukee Brewers designated hitter Jesse Winker was ejected following an automatic strike call.
Following a Christian Yelich RBI single, Jesse Winker came up to bat in the top of the eighth inning with two outs. The Brewers had just scored a run off Rays reliever Ryan Thompson and cut the deficit to four runs. This promoted a mound visit from the Rays pitching coach.
With the pitch clock running, the Rays pitcher not engaged on the rubber and his coach on his way out of the dugout, Jesse Winker was hovering around the batters box when he was given an automatic strike as the clock fell below eight seconds.
Jesse Winker was given an automatic strike for not being in the batter’s box even though Ryan Thompson was not on the mound
He struck out and was ejected after the at-bat pic.twitter.com/7pV2IDDRLo
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) May 20, 2023
This promoted Brewers manager Craig Counsell to come out of the dugout and get an explanation as to why his batter was issued an automatic strike in the setting of a mound visit set to take place and the pitcher not anywhere near the rubber. The umpires got together to discuss it, but the automatic strike on Jesse Winker remained.
Jesse Winker would go on to strikeout during this at-bat. He was immediately down 0-2 as Ryan Thompson’s first pitch to him was a strike. The automatic strike call was a huge disadvantage for Winker and after the at-bat he wanted to discuss it more, but was ejected from the game.
For the Brewers, they ended up losing another game and have now lost seven of their last nine series. They will look to avoid being swept by the Rays on Sunday.
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