Anthony Rizzo Still Doesn’t Really Know Why He Was Ejected

In the span of about two minutes in the 5th inning of Wednesday’s much-needed win, the Cubs lost both Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant. The latter was lifted after tweaking a sore right knee that’s been barking at him since the All-Star break, though it’s possible he just didn’t want to continue after seeing his business partner unceremoniously tossed from the game.

Rizzo dug in with two outs and quickly got ahead 3-0 on Giants starter Tyler Beede, then he fouled off a fastball before taking what he though was ball four. When the outside fastball was called a strike, Rizzo took his time gathering himself by walking out of the box. Maybe he even uttered a choice word or three about the judgement of home plate umpire Jordan Baker.

When he swung and missed for strike three, Rizzo was visibly upset and let loose some more salty syllables. He didn’t confront Baker and wasn’t even yelling in the umpire’s general direction, but made his way back to the dugout as smoke poured from his ears. But the umpires union must have been well below ejection quota for the week because Baker went ahead and ran Rizzo without so much as a conversation.

Of course, the first baseman went back to get his money’s worth after being tossed. I’m just an amateur lip-reader, so I can’t be certain about what Rizzo said, but it looked like maybe “fudge” and “shoot” were among his verbal darts. He was decided less animated during postgame media availability, which apparently took place in a library.

“If that’s the magic word, I’d probably be ejected from about 90 games a year, so…” Rizzo practically whispered to Jesse Rogers and other media members. [What word was that?] “I don’t know, that’s why I’d probably be ejected from about 90 of ’em.”

While the Cubs were able to hold on without their corner men, it was more than a bit jarring to see them both out of the game so early. Both should be back in action when the Cubs travel to Milwaukee to take on the Brewers, as Bryant said his knee is fine and he was adamant that he’ll be in the lineup for Friday’s game.

From now on, though, Bryant might want to teach Rizzo about works like “gosh” and “shucks” so situations like this can be avoided in the future. Then again, KB has been known to get a little saucy when he needs to.