Phillies

Ump Show: Rob Thomson Tossed Defending Aaron Nola as Phillies Get Blown Out by Dodgers

By Anthony SanFilippo

Published: Jun 11th, 2023 · 9:56 AM EDT

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Aaron Nola reiterated it a bunch of times. He doesn’t want what happened in the sixth inning of Saturday’s 9-0 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers to be considered an excuse.

“I really don’t want to talk too much more about it,” he said. “We just lost. I didn’t have a great start and I didn’t put the team in a position to win, and that’s all that matters.”

He’s right. The Phillies did lose. He didn’t have a great start, although his final pitching line was exacerbated by a meltdown of a relief appearance by Jeff Hoffman. But no, Nola didn’t put his team in a position to win.

Nola could have had as great a start as he did in his last outing, when he took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, and still not put his team in a position to win, because when you score zero runs, you can never win a baseball game.

Nevertheless, the most notable thing from this ugly defeat that snapped the Phillies’ six-game winning streak was what happened in the sixth inning when the ump show took over. Nola, like most pitchers in baseball, looks for way to slow down a game during the pitch clock era. The most common practice is asking for a new baseball. Sometimes it’s legitimate – pitchers have been asking for new baseballs for years. Even before the installation of the pitch clock. Baseballs are like snowflakes. Every one is different and they even change as a game goes on.

“You want to rub up a ball, just like every game,” Nola said. “Sometimes they’re chalky. Sometimes they’re slick. Sometimes the seams are bigger than other seams and sometimes they’re smaller. It all depends.”

But sometimes asking for a new ball is intentionally done to buy an extra couple seconds. Nola has admitted to doing this since Spring Training. It’s nothing new. And he’s not the only one. Pitchers all across baseball have used it as a tactic.

When there’s nobody on base and the pitcher is in the windup, there’s no way for them to ask for a timeout and the only way to reset the clock or buy themselves a few seconds to gather themselves is to burn a mound visit, which they don’t want to do with nobody on base, because they only get so many a game for the team.

Each batter can request a timeout during an at bat. But a pitcher can’t ask for a timeout. He would be assessed an automatic ball. If there’s a runner on base he can use one of his two “disengagements” allowed per at bat to step off the rubber. But with nobody on base, there are no disengagements allowed.

It’s an inconsistency that baseball should address, although the powers that be are still in the stage of shoving their rules down everyone’s throat until there’s a submission, that they’re not worried about what they may have gotten wrong.

So, what happened, exactly?

In the top of the sixth, when the game was still within reach (3-0 LA), Nola had two outs, nobody on base and a 2-2 count on David Peralta, who had homered off him in a previous at bat.

Nola asked for a new ball, when third base umpire Bill Miller told him enough was enough.

A pool reporter was sent to the umpire’s room after the game to get an explanation from Miller. Here was that exchange:

OK… a few things here that should immediately piss you off and show you this was an ump show of the highest order:

1. “Obviously it’s very sensitive…”  Really? You don’t say? Baseball is on edge about this rule? How can that be when all we hear from the marketing parrots (including those in the media) is about how wonderful it is and how it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the sport?

2. “Nola was good the first two or three innings…” and “It’s up to the umpire’s judgment.” Oh, so you mean you were looking for it? You were looking for a chance to have a “gotcha moment.” You weren’t simply umpiring in the flow of the game. There wasn’t actually a rule that was broken here. You were waiting for a chance to ding him. Guess this had nothing to do with his comments earlier in the week about the pitch clock being faster at Citizens Bank Park than anywhere else in the league followed by Matt Gelb’s outstanding report in The Athletic that proved Nola’s point, right?

So, now you are completely making stuff up. More evidence that this was premeditated and not just an adjudication made in the game.

“Nobody said a word about it until today,” said Thomson after the game. It was worth noting because normally MLB would warn teams in advance if there was going to be a crackdown on what it perceived was an effort by teams or players to circumvent rules – for example, when they started checking for “sticky stuff” abuse by pitchers. Teams knew it was coming. This just came out of left field.

“I don’t know how yo can tell if a pitcher is throwing out a baseball because he doesn’t like the feel or he’s trying to slow (down the clock),” Thomson said. “Unless you are a mind reader. Kreskin.”

Thomson immediately came out of the dugout to argue with the umpires.

Nola got Peralta to fly out on the very next pitch to end the inning, and then things unraveled in the seventh inning, but in the moment, this is a problem that baseball has brought onto itself and needs to fix. And I’m not talking about getting rid of the new rules, but rather getting a handle on how they are implemented. Because, these umpires are out there running things like it’s the wild west.

Franzke and L.A. react to another Ump Show making up their own rules on the fly pic.twitter.com/QWdgeE4h7A

— Nick Piccone (@_piccone) June 10, 2023