NEW YORK -- Frustration boiled over in the A's 3-2 loss at Yankee Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Second baseman Jed Lowrie and manager Bob Melvin were ejected from the contest in the same inning by home-plate umpire Will Little, whose strike zone was the subject of much debate on the visitors' side.
Lowrie, who entered the game riding a seven-game hitting streak in which he was batting .552, believes he was denied a chance to extend it to eight: "All I'm going to say is that I got the bat taken out of my hands three times today," he said after the game.
The veteran infielder, playing in his 10th Major League season, had never before been ejected. He was rung up three times Saturday, arguing with Little on two occasions. He didn't hold back in the eighth, prompting his ejection.
"I don't know if I was expecting it," Lowrie said, "but it kind of seemed like it was heading in that direction."
Melvin wasn't far behind him. The A's manager shared his own thoughts with Little following a borderline third-strike call on Trevor Plouffe and was subsequently tossed. Chad Pinder struck out swinging to strand runners at second and third to end the inning, as the A's left eight on base in a game that saw them outhit the Yankees, 7-2.

"Just a lot of frustration in big situations," said Melvin, who declined to expand.
"Any time you're in a close game and have an at-bat, it's a big situation," Lowrie said. "If you get into a hitter's count, you might get a pitch to get an extra-base hit or hit a homer."
A's hitters tied their season high with 14 strikeouts -- five looking -- after fanning 13 times in Friday's opener.
"It is what it is," catcher Josh Phegley said. "We were no-hitting the Yankees and losing, so I think we wanted a little more offensive production, but that's just the way the game went. We just didn't make the best of the opportunities we had.
"Obviously, I feel like maybe there were some walks that we had, we worked the counts very well, that didn't go in our favor. That's just the way it goes."