MINNEAPOLIS -- Twins manager Derek Shelton was ejected for the fourth time this season in Tuesday night’s 8-1 loss to the Yankees following an argument over whether Emmanuel Rodriguez had hit a home run off the right-field foul pole in the bottom of the eighth inning at Target Field.
At first glance, it looked as though the ball had gone foul, but the ball was called a home run by home-plate umpire Brennan Miller. Then the umpire crew got together and overturned the call to foul without going to a crew chief review.
Miller announced that the call was changed to foul based on crew consultation. A crew chief review then confirmed the call.
Shelton began to argue with crew chief and third-base umpire John Tumpane before the play went to a crew chief review. After the foul ball call was confirmed by Tumpane, Shelton was ejected for arguing a replay decision.
“He wanted us to go right to replay without the crew consultation,” said Tumpane. “I see his side of it, but we've always been trained that if there's something we could do to get the call initially [we should], and we felt as a crew that we did. And that was ultimately how we left the huddle with ultimately making the decision [of a] foul ball, and then going to replay and having that decision confirmed."
“The frustration there, honestly, was the fact that my argument was, don’t overturn it before you go to replay,” Shelton said. “The conversation after that was, well, replay confirmed it, and my thing was don’t change it before. If they want to change it right away -- but they didn’t. In my opinion, they did not. If you go to replay and it’s foul, 100% understand that, but in that case I didn’t think that’s the way it went down.”
Culpepper leaves with left hamstring tightness
Just three days after being drilled by a pitch on his back, Kaelen Culpepper exited early again.
The Twins announced that Culpepper left the game after the sixth inning with left hamstring tightness. It came when he tried to beat out a double-play grounder. He grabbed the back of his left leg after getting called out at first, and Ryan Kreidler replaced him at shortstop in the seventh.
“What he told me was that he felt it the first move out of the box,” said Shelton. “So we’ll get an MRI in the morning and see where he’s at. Honestly, it sucks. Just because of the fact that we’re late in the schedule and how well he’s played and what he’s done.”
Culpepper had missed two games after he was hit by a pitch from Guardians reliever Franco Aleman in the bottom of the third inning of the Twins' 4-3 victory over Cleveland on Saturday.