John Lackey. 1, 2, Ejected.

When it comes to officiating, the umpires of Major League Baseball are about the best there are. When compared to the officiating of the NBA they are better, and when compared to the pathetic excuse for officiating that operate in the NFL they come out far superior. However, that does not mean they don't have their issues. When it comes to umpires their problems are with their memories, vindictiveness, and their requirement for numerous subjective calls with every outing that they make. Saturday Umpire Bob Davidson made one of these interesting and rarely precedented subjective calls. John Lackey made his season debut last night, fresh off of the disabled list. This was the first time he had pitched in six weeks, the last time being in spring training. His first pitch was over the head of Ian Kinsler, the second one plunked him. Immediately, no warning given, no conversation whatsoever, Mr. Davidson ejected John Lackey after two pitches. Lackey seemed to be shocked by the occurence and had this to say about it:

"I haven't pitched in six weeks, and I was amped up. I was trying to come in on him, but there was no intention at all to hit him or throw behind him."

Now there are a lot of things going on here. The Rangers and Angels have a history, lots of beanings and lots of retaliations. I am sure that Bob Davidson saw that this had the chance to be an escalating situation , and here was his oppurtunity to keep the chaos in check. However, their are some problems with this sort of pre-emptive attack. The warning rule was initiated to try and prevent escalating situations like this. You throw out the warning, and the next time a batter is hit in even remotely questionable circumstances and BAM both the pitcher and the manager are ejected from the game. Its a pretty good deterrent usually. Why then did Davidson decide to eject Lackey after two pitches without a warning? Good question, he must have felt that Lackey unquestionably was throwing with purpose, and he very well could have been. It was wrong though to eject, because there is this thing called reasonable doubht, and there was plenty in this case with him not being on the mound in so long. The warning rule was designed for this very situation, one in which the umpire is pretty sure he did it on purpose, but their are some questions about whether or not he can say that with 100% certainty. In this case Bob Davidson should have shown more restraint. This sort of thing has a lot of ramifications for the Angels. Firstly, Lackey could be suspended for this, which he probably wouldn't have been without the ejection. Secondly, Major League teams are not designed to have their starter knocked out while facing only one batter. This sort of thing exhausts the bullpen and keeps them from being at their best for several games. It was an interesting situation thats for sure.

If you want to check it out for yourself here is the link from the MLB network.

http://losangeles.angels.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=4597465&c_id=ana