Umpire Sam Holbrook Tossed Zack Greinke After Just Four Pitches Last Night

On the off chance you thought a new day had dawned, here's some bad news: umpires are still assholes sometimes.

Things weren't going so hot for Zach Greinke five minutes into his start yesterday. On his first pitch of the afternoon, Jordan Schafer tripled, and Greinke only threw three more pitches to Jose Altuve before Sam Holbrook called Altuve safe on a grounder that Greinke covered at first. The call at first was a close one, but nobody had a chance to argue with it: Greinke spiked the ball in frustration—or I guess demonstratively, if you're Holbrook—and the ump tossed him without hesitation. Bing bang boom: the shortest start of Greinke's career.

Yahoo has some more on it:

After the ejection it was easy to read Greinke saying the words: "I'm mad at myself." But it was too late at that point, Holbrook had already made his call. And although it looked for a split second like he realized he'd probably made a silly, reactionary decision, he went ahead and ran Brewers manager Ron Roenicke as well for defending his pitcher.

The announcers note that Greinke's reaction might have warranted a fine, but say the ejection was flat-out bad umpiring (You can better know Sam Holbrook here, and see some of his greatest hits here, here, and here). Greinke took the four pitch loss.

Here's video with a little Joe West action in there too, if that's your thing:

[ Yahoo]