Ian Miller
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Detroit Tigers first baseman Spencer Torkelson took out a little frustration on the umpire recently.
Torkelson, a former first overall pick, has not had the best start to his MLB career.
He has just a 94 OPS+ this season, which, to be fair, is higher than his career 83 OPS+ line.
For a player entering the league with such high expectations, the disappointing numbers have to be frustrating.
And that frustration boiled over on a borderline call by the home plate umpire during Monday night’s Tigers-Kansas City Royals game at Comerica Park.
Torkelson came up to hit in the bottom of the seventh inning with his team trailing 4-3. The game seemingly hung in the balance, with one out and runners on first and second.
On a 2-2 count, Torkelson took a 90 mph changeup that he thought spun low and out of the zone.
The umpire disagreed and rang him up.
That’s when things got funny, thanks to a hot mic in Detroit.
“Oh my f****** God,” Torkelson said. “What the f*** are you looking at.”
Amazing.
Umpire Looks Pretty Good After Torkelson Incident
The person who comes out of this situation looking the best has to be the home plate umpire.
According to the automated strike zone, the pitch was technically a strike. Although given the framing and break, it could have gone either way.
But beyond the seemingly accurate call, the umpire kept his head after Torkelson’s outburst.
Incredibly, instead of being immediately tossed for swearing at the umpire, Little let him stay in the game.
And Torkelson’s missed opportunity to tie the score wound up being immediately irrelevant. The very next hitter, Kerry Carpenter, launched a three-run home run to take a 6-4 lead.
Considering how fast umpires are with the “trigger finger” ejections, I’m surprised that Torkelson stayed in the game. For once, cooler heads prevailed in MLB, which is very rare.