Sports are filled with unwritten rules, and baseball is absolutely no exception. “Don’t argue balls and strikes” is one of those rules instilled in players when they first start playing the game, but of course, some rules are easier to follow than others.
That rule, coupled with a tap of the helmet, led to one of the most bizarre ejections you might ever see in the major leagues on Sunday.
The scene was Sunday afternoon’s game between the Houston Astros and the Tampa Bay Rays. With the Astros leading 1-0 in the top of the ninth inning infielder Taylor Walls, who entered the game in the seventh inning as a pinch runner, was at the play with one out facing Houston closer Josh Hader.
On the first pitch of the at-bat, the left-handed Hader threw a slider low and away to the right-handed Walls, which home plate umpire Nic Lentz called a strike.
Walls clearly did not agree with the call and backed out of the batter’s box, before adjusting his helmet and then tapping it a few times.
Which is when chaos ensued.
During Spring Training this season the MLB ran a trial of the “automated ball-strike challenge system,” under which the pitcher, catcher, or batter could request a review of a ball or strike. What is the signal for such a request?
A tap of the helmet.
After Walls tapped his helmet, Lentz stepped around Houston catcher Yainer Diaz and sent the Rays infielder to the showers, ejecting him from the game.
That is when Walls truly erupted.
You can see the entire sequence here:
Even after being led away by Tampa Bay bench coach Rodney Linares, Walls escaped to make another run at the Lentz before finally being escorted to the clubhouse by teammate Josh Lowe after first base coach Michael Johns intervened.
Speaking with the media after the game, Walls conceded that after seeing the replay he could see where Lentz had thought he was being “disrespectful,” but there was absolutely no intention behind his gesture.
“That’s what he told me. ‘You’re not going to do that. You’re not going to tap your helmet.’ And so at that point, like, I know that they think that’s disrespectful,” Walls said to the media after the game. “I watched the video, and I could see where he may have thought that.
“But I think, like, the context clues around it — I’m looking at him and my body language is saying, like, ‘Dude, I didn’t hear what you’re saying.’ I didn’t say anything to him leading up to this. If I’m gonna tap my helmet, I’m not gonna do it while I’m looking at you, asking you a question, trying to understand what you’re telling me.”
Walls added that he believed the ejection was “premature” given the situation.
“I just remember going to get into the box, kind of adjusting my helmet, and then hearing him mouthing something. I was like, I think I said, ‘Huh? What’d you say? I can’t hear you,’” Walls said. “And at that point — I have no recollection of it, but after seeing the video, it looks like I tapped my helmet. But it was totally unintentional, something I was not consciously aware of at all.
“So then he comes out, and he’s like, ‘We’re not doing that. You’re out of here,’ and tosses me. … Just to be so on edge, thinking that somebody’s just trying to be so disrespectful and show you up at that point, I think it was premature.”
