Alex Bregman is just 24 years old, but he rips into umpires like a seasoned veteran.
Here’s what had Bregman so upset: In the sixth inning of Wednesday’s game against the Colorado Rockies, the Houston Astros third baseman appeared to smack a leadoff triple when his deep fly ball bounced off left fielder Gerardo Parra at the wall.
But a fan appeared to reach over the wall and deflect the ball, and after a video review, the umpires determined there was fan interference — and that Parra would have caught the ball if not for the interference. Hence, Bregman was ruled out.
It was a crucial call, as the Astros eventually lost 3-2 after having their rally snuffed out.
And Bregman, well, he wasn’t pleased with the umps’ ruling.
“It was a f—ing joke, and they should be f—ing ashamed of themselves,” Bregman told reporters after the game, via MLB.com. “Obviously, the guy has never played f—ing baseball before in his life, the guy in charge of whoever made that decision. There is no possible way you can say that a left fielder jumping backwards into a wall is guaranteed to make a catch.
“It changed the whole f—ing game. We’re up 2-1 at the time, I’m at third base. We need a fly ball to the outfield to get me in, and it’s 3-1. It’s f—ing horrible.”
Here’s video of Bregman’s rant, for your viewing pleasure:
Major League Baseball’s interference rule leaves the judgment up to the umpire; if the ump determines a spectator “clearly prevents a fielder from catching a fly ball by reaching onto the field of play,” then the batter is ruled out.
Bregman’s gripe is that Parra would have had to make a difficult play to begin with and still might not have caught the ball had it not been interfered with. He apparently carried that gripe out of the ballpark, too, getting into it with a local TV reporter on Twitter.
Parra, meanwhile, obviously thought otherwise, insisting he was tracking the ball the whole way before the fan changed its direction by tipping it.
“It almost hit me in the face,” Parra said, via ESPN.com. “I thought, ‘What happened? At the last second, the ball moved.’ I never saw the fan touch the ball until I saw the replay, but I feel I would have had that ball.”
