Tuesday’s Mets-Red Sox game marked a return to action for both Red Sox starter Walker Buehler and manager Alex Cora. Buehler was put on the IL with a shoulder injury on May 2; the inflammation cleared up fast enough that he was activated Tuesday morning without any rehab assignment. Cora’s absence was even briefer: To the ire of one Boston talk radio guy, Cora missed Monday’s game to attend his daughter’s college graduation.
“It’s not like they need him there to make the pitching change or lay down the bunt. It’s the leadership and optics of the whole thing,” 98.5 The Sports Hub host Michael Felger said. I can understand being hard up for story ideas; a Boston radio host probably didn’t think he’d have to talk baseball in late May.
To the extent that he made any good points there, Felger did, I suppose, admit to the dubious in-game value of a given manager. The Red Sox did not need Cora to make pitching changes; bench coach Ramón Vázquez managed those ably in a 3-1 win to open the series against the Mets. Vázquez would do so again for most of Tuesday night, when Cora was tossed by home plate umpire Mike Estabrook in the top of the third inning.
Cora was trying to avert a problem that would be felt in much less abstract ways than “optics” and “leadership.” Moments before giving Cora the heave, and 52 pitches into Buehler’s first outing back from the IL, Estabrook had ejected the starting pitcher. “I don't know what the exchange was, but I've been at this for a few years, and I was just begging, ‘Just give me a break. I'll go out and you can throw me out, and we can keep the pitcher in the game,’” Cora told reporters afterward. “But I guess he had enough. I don't know why.”
In a 1-0 count with one out in the third, Buehler threw his final pitch of the night: a fastball in the strike zone to Juan Soto. Francisco Lindor took off from first as Buehler threw it, and when Red Sox catcher Carlos Narváez popped up to nab Lindor at second (unsuccessfully), Estabrook called ball two. Narváez said he suspects that in the chaos of the throw to second, Estabrook didn’t see where the pitch landed.
“That was right down the fucking middle,” Buehler snapped. Estabrook held up two fingers, ready to resume the plate appearance, but Buehler kept talking and the umpire wasn’t in a gracious mood. He took off his mask and headed toward the mound, warning Buehler to stay on it. Buehler didn’t actually seem interested in leaving the mound until Estabrook told him not to. He stepped forward and got the quick toss. Trying to earn it at least retroactively, Buehler left Estabrook with a final “Fuck you” as he walked off the field.
Crew chief Laz Diaz told the pool reporter afterward that Buehler was ejected for “leaving his position … Once anybody leaves their position to argue balls and strikes, that’s an immediate ejection." Cora’s subsequent spat with Estabrook bought poor reliever Brennan Bernardino a few extra seconds of time to prep for a two-on, one-out jam with Pete Alonso up. But Bernardino wriggled out of it quickly. Though Cora had smashed the bullpen phone cover on his way out of the dugout, the phone itself still seemed to work. Answering the call all night, the Red Sox bullpen cobbled together the last 20 outs for a 2-0 win to take the series.
Left with the energy reserves of an athlete who had not pitched in a month and then had his start cut short, Buehler spent the evening posting online a lot. His tone in the clubhouse after the game had been a remorseful one. “This is a team game and something I let get out of hand,” he said. In an Instagram caption, he rued the “horrendous spot” he “put those boys in.” But later in the night, he let himself get angrier. “Who cut the distance?” he replied to a tweet with Diaz’s explanation in the pool report, implying that Estabrook had left his position. He also quoted a clip of Lindor egging on the ejection. “I wouldn’t want me out there either. Sad thing is the BULLPEN is full of fucking animals. Tough choice,” Buehler posted, at approximately 2 a.m. Eastern.
