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Phillies’ frustrations boil over on brutal day from umpiring crew in Baltimore

Rob Thomson was ejected Sunday. (Grace Del Pizzo/Phillies Nation)

BALTIMORE — The Philadelphia Phillies didn’t lose Sunday’s series finale against the Orioles because of home plate umpire Mike Estabrook, but he certainly didn’t help their cause.

In the home half of the first inning, Zack Wheeler seemed to have Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson — one of the hottest hitters in the league — struck out. He and catcher Garrett Stubbs both acknowledged postgame that they thought it was a strike, with the latter even suggesting that Estabrook started to flinch before eventually calling it a ball.

Instead, Estabrook called the pitch ball three. Four pitches later, Henderson launched his 22nd home run of the season.

There’s only so much Estabrook’s missed call can be used to explain Wheeler’s struggles Sunday. Yes, Henderson got an extra strike to work with, took advantage of it, and because of that, Wheeler’s day got off to a rocky start. But it was ultimately just one of four home runs that Wheeler surrendered in perhaps his worst outing as a Phillie, which saw him allow nine eights and eight earned runs over 4 1/3 innings. It just wasn’t a good day for Wheeler, and that was largely his tone postgame.

But it wasn’t the only fairly consequential missed call Estabrook had Sunday that went against the Phillies.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, Bryson Stott came to the plate with runners on first and third base, and the Phillies down two. RBIs from Nick Castellanos and Alec Bohm off of Corbin Burnes had trimmed the deficit to only two runs. Stott, though, was rung up on an 0-2 pitch by Estabrook that wasn’t even close to being a struck.

Would Stott have come through otherwise? Who knows. He grounded out to end the top of the first inning, stranding a pair of runners in scoring position. Even if Estabrook had called this pitch a ball, it would have been a 1-2 count on Stott, who entered the day hitting .220 in June.

But Stott didn’t have the chance to change his fortunes because of what was an even more egregious call by Estabrook than the one that went against Wheeler earlier in the day.

By the time Garrett Stubbs was told to go back to the batter’s box after initially being rewarded first base in the top of the sixth inning, it almost didn’t matter whether the catcher had actually been hit or not. There was a perception that Laz Diaz’s umpiring crew — primarily, Estabrook — had lost control of the game, even if it wasn’t going to change the outcome.

And so after a long meeting of the umpiring crew resulted in Stubbs being told “actually, go back to the batter’s box,” Thomson’s frustrations from the day boiled over, resulting in the angriest he’s been since taking over as manager in June of 2022.

“Mike [Estabrook] had awarded Stubby first base,” Thomson said postgame. “Brandon Hyde comes out, then the umpires get together. Then the second base umpire [Charlie Ramos] said that he couldn’t see the ball hit Stubby’s foot. So I asked ‘You’re telling me that from 200 feet or 130 feet or however far it is, you can tell whether a ball hit a foot or not?’

“So they told me ‘Well, use your challenge.’ And I said, ‘You’ve already awarded him first base. Why don’t you make them use their challenge?’ So, that was it, really. I didn’t quite understand the whole thing, but it is what it is.”

The bulk of the anger from both Thomson and Stubbs seemed to be less about whether or not he was hit, but more that the Phillies were expected to have to show the burden of proof by challenging, rather than the Orioles having to challenge and have conclusive evidence that he wasn’t hit.

Estabrook even had to be told by Diaz that the Phillies had indeed requested a challenge in time after Thomson was ejected, according to Stubbs.

Stubbs was adamant that he was indeed hit, and said that the Orioles argument was that he had stepped out of the batter’s box, not that he wasn’t hit. After looking on video, Stubbs said that he didn’t think he was out the box. Regardless, that wasn’t the reasoning given for the call being overturned.

“Because I didn’t get hit,” Stubbs said when asked to elaborate on the reasoning he was given for the call being overturned. “Which, the original argument from the Orioles was that my foot was out of the batter’s box. It wasn’t even that I got hit or didn’t get hit. They didn’t even argue that I did or didn’t get hit. They just thought that my foot was out of the batter’s box.

“So for them to take it away after that was, yeah, I can’t believe it,” Stubbs added.

Stubbs said he thanked Thomson postgame for taking up for him, with Wheeler adding that Thomson “kind of got all of our anger out for us” on what all parties admitted was a frustrating afternoon.

The Phillies are eager to return home to Citizens Bank Park — with Trea Turner likely to be in the lineup — Monday night against the San Diego Padres. Not only will it be their first home game in 12 days, but it will come with a different umpiring crew than they had Sunday.