Frustrated Farrell gets ejected in Atlanta
ATLANTA -- Considering the way the Red Sox have been playing, perhaps it was only a matter of time before manager John Farrell boiled over.
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When first-base umpire Larry Vanover ruled that the Braves' Pedro Ciriaco held up on a check-swing in the bottom of the seventh inning, Farrell was irate and got ejected from a game the Red Sox lost, 5-2.
As Farrell gestured angrily from the third-base dugout, Vanover tossed him, and the manager then came out to say his piece.
"I don't know that he could have heard me from that distance. I motioned after the check-swing of Ciriaco," said Farrell. "It was clearly a full swing. And he ran me at that point, so I went out to argue my case."
The tension had already been building for Farrell, who was displeased by the instant-replay system earlier in the game, not to mention the way Boston is struggling to win games.
Farrell challenged a play in the first inning, thinking that Brock Holt was safe at second base on a fielder's choice grounder by Xander Bogaerts.
Video: BOS@ATL: Holt out at second, call stands
"It took a while for the replays to come in," said Farrell. "That was the initial delay. Then when we looked at the replays internally, the question we had, did he have full control of the throw? He seemed to have it pinned up against his leg. And there, on our part, was a little discrepancy on the timing of it. We lost the challenge."
That only became more annoying in the top of the second, when Mookie Betts put down a bunt that pushed runners to second and third and clearly beat the throw to first. However, Vanover ruled him out and Farrell no longer had a challenge at his disposal.
Video: BOS@ATL: Wood makes a quick play to retire Betts
"The thing that I have a discrepancy with is we've been involved in games in which prior to the completion of the sixth inning, after a team has lost their challenge, on a disputable call, they'll ask for a crew-chief review," Farrell said. "Mookie Betts is safe by a step and a half. And when there was a refusal to review it, I just asked Larry at that point, 'You state that the rule is you can't go take a look at this play.' But when it's not implemented consistently across the board, that's where you begin to have some issues with it."
For Farrell, the disputes just add to the frustration when his team has lost eight out of nine and is nine games back in the American League East.
"You want to get the breaks in the game. It seems like for a while, we didn't have any," said second baseman Dustin Pedroia. "Obviously, we challenged the one in the first inning. Then the play with Mookie in the second, we think he's safe and we can't challenge it. Those breaks you don't get, he's not the only one that's frustrated, everyone is. You make your own breaks, and we just didn't get any."