Last night, Oakland A’s DH Billy Butler spiced up a dull 6-3 loss to the Cleveland Indians by getting into an argument with catcher Chris Gimenez, taking a ball off the plate, socking a 442-foot tater, and then laying off an equally huge and authoritative bat flip. It was great.
After the game, Butler and Gimenez said that the beef was over Gimenez aggressively working home plate umpire Tripp Gibson for calls on borderline pitches. (“I thought he might be asking for a little bit too much,” said Butler, according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser, while Gimenez pointed out that trying to get balls called strikes is his job.) While the field-level audio in the clip above isn’t crystal clear, it certainly does sound like Gibson tells Gimenez to knock it off, suggesting that Butler’s big jack was in service of a righteous cause.
[Fox Sports Ohio]