St. Louis Cardinals reliever Genesis Cabrera was none too happy with Chad Fairchild’s strike zone on Sunday, and he wasn’t too impressed when the home plate umpire ejected him, either.
Cabrera issued a walk to Cincinnati Reds outfielder Jesse Winker on a borderline 3-2 pitch to start the eighth inning of Sunday’s game. Cabrera clearly felt the pitch was a strike, and as he was walking back to the dugout following a pitching change, gestured repeatedly toward Fairchild as if diagramming the strike zone. Fairchild’s response was to eject Cabrera, even though the pitcher had already been pulled from the game.
How unimpressed was Cabrera? His first reaction was to openly laugh at Fairchild. He followed that up by sticking his tongue out at the umpire, a la Joe Kelly against the Houston Astros.
Cabrera was already out of the game. He knew that he couldn’t face any more consequences for his actions, at least not on Sunday. So he decided to live it up a little.
The only question is whether Cabrera was actually trying to make the famous Joe Kelly face or whether it just worked out that way. Either way, fans probably won’t feel too bad for an umpire getting trolled like that, deserved or not.
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