Justin Turner Defends Pitcher Who Just Plunked Him From Overreacting Umpire

The Dodgers beat the hell out of the Phillies Monday night, ripping off a six-run fourth inning and cruising to a 16–2 victory. But that doesn’t mean the late innings were entirely without drama: for one thing, the Phillies used a position player as a pitcher; for another, in the top of the eighth inning, Justin Turner of the Dodgers found himself in the odd position of urging the home plate umpire not to eject the pitcher who’d just plunked him on the knee.

Phillies reliever Yacksel Ríos was putting together a real exploding outhouse of an inning. He’d given up consecutive doubles to open the inning, and then surrendered a two-run bomb to Alex Verdugo. On his very next pitch, Ríos sent an 84-mph pitch into Turner’s back knee. A reliever plunking a guy immediately after giving up a dinger in a blowout loss might ordinarily be more than a little bit suspicious, but this sure looked like Ríos just lost control of a breaking pitch. Home plate umpire Doug Eddings apparently saw it as retaliatory and immediately tossed Ríos. Ríos argued, catcher J.T. Realmuto argued, Phillies manager Gabe Kapler argued. But the real highlight was a puzzled Justin Turner, who took up Ríos’s case before the first base umpire came along and ushered him out of there.

Turner’s intervention was no good. Ríos was tossed, Kapler was red-faced, and Philly wound up turning to outfielder Roman Quinn to pitch the ninth. The Phillies have now lost seven of their last nine series dating back to June 10, with the only two wins coming against the miserable Mets. No wonder Turner felt bad for them.