An ugly call led to an ugly scene after the San Diego Padres felt robbed by an umpire during their season-ending loss to the Chicago Cubs on Thursday night.
Several members of the Padres team and coaching staff were seen confronting the game’s umpires from their dugout as the crew left the field following Game 3 of the National League wild-card series at Wrigley Field.
Video of the incident went viral on social media, with players screaming profanities and gesturing towards the crew as they made their exit.
WARNING: Language
One unidentified Padres player kicks things off by screaming towards the umpires before manager Mike Shildt arrives to hold him back from escalating the situation.
Another player then arrives on the scene, shouting and leaning over the railing to give his thoughts to the crew.
While it is difficult to make out exactly what was said by the Padres players — a Cubs rally song is blaring in the background of the clips — several profanities are very clearly heard.
The Padres clearly were irked by a controversial ninth inning call at the plate.
Trailing 3-1 with Xander Bogaerts at the plate, a full-count pitch from Brad Keller that appeared to be outside of the zone was called a strike by home plate umpire D.J. Reyburn.
Bogaerts was incensed by the call and argued with Reyburn before Shildt came out of the dugout to help cool down the situation.
All three members of the TV broadcast crew agreed with Bogaerts,
“D.J. Reyburn just bailed out Keller and Bogaerts knows it,” one announcer said before referencing a rule change for next season that will allow challenges on strike calls using the ABS system. “Next year, that is a helmet tap in a millisecond.”
After the second broadcaster agreed it would be an easy review decision, the third member of the booth put it succinctly: “Not a strike.”
When speaking to reporters after the game, Bogaerts held firm that call was wrong and that it submarined his team’s chances.
“Talk about it now: what do you want me to do?” Bogaerts said, per the San Diego Union-Tribune. “It’s a ball. Messed up the whole game, you know? I mean, can’t go back in time and talking about it now won’t change anything. So it was bad, and thank God for ABS next year, because this is terrible.”