There’s a saying about baseball that every day you see something new. On Tuesday, that meant Jose Altuve’s foot.
An already dramatic game between the Houston Astros and San Diego Padres entered strange territory in the top of the ninth inning, when the Astros All-Star was up to bat with a runner on second, two outs and the score tied 3-3.
Facing Padres reliever Robert Suarez, Altuve hit what appeared to be an inning-ending grounder toward third base. Altuve did not run the play, however, as he signaled to home plate umpire Brennan Miller that he had hit the ball with his foot before it entered the field. If true, it should have been called a foul ball.
Altuve proceeded to argue his case with Miller and was soon joined by Astros manager Joe Espada. Altuve appeared to let his manager take over the discussion, but it turned out he was just preparing a visual aid for Miller, in the form of removing both the shoe and sock from his left foot.
That earned Miller a quick ejection. Espada was also ejected from the game early in the bottom of the ninth inning.
A subsequent replay showed Altuve was right, in case you thought he was just pretending to be so angry that he partially stripped. The ball clearly bounced off the toe of his left shoe before reaching Padres third baseman Manny Machado.
We’ve seen some bizarre ejections this season, most notably when an umpire mistook a fan who was swearing at him for New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone, but this one might take the trophy for most bizarre.
What makes this even crazier is that this is only the second time Altuve has been ejected this season for arguing with umpires after being called out on a grounder that actually hit his foot to end an inning. Much the same thing, minus the foot revelation, happened in July.
So that might have been why Altuve was especially frustrated on Tuesday. Those two incidents represent two of three ejections in his 14-year career.
The game went into extra innings, where the Astros again became frustrated with the umpires. Houston took a 4-3 lead into the bottom of the 10th inning, but the Padres got runners on the corners with two outs. Astros reliever Hector Neris threw his first pitch at Jurickson Profar so deep that he was ruled to have been hit by a pitch.
Once again, replay showed the umpires were wrong. Once again, the Astros had to deal with it. Their dugout was visibly frustrated when the call made on the field was upheld. Even Profar looked confused when he took his base, which pushed the winning run to second.
The Astros solved the problem by inducing a game-ending groundout from Manny Machado, which could have won the game had it hit Neris’ foot.