Written by Chelsea Janes at Washington Post.com
Minutes before Clint Robinson hit a walk-off home run to give the Nationals a win over the Detroit Tigers on Monday night, home plate umpire Brian Knight ejected Bryce Harper from the game. Harper, along with the rest of the Nationals’ dugout, had expressed displeasure with the fact that Knight had just called Danny Espinosa out on a borderline pitch in the ninth. As Espinosa walked away, Knight motioned to the dugout and pointed for Harper to leave it — at which point Harper had to be restrained on the top step. Eventually, as Manager Dusty Baker discussed the matter with Knight, Harper headed back to the clubhouse.
“I went in there for two seconds and came back out and yelled,” Harper said.
The yelling to which Harper referred centered on the celebration of Robinson’s home run. The yelling about which everyone was talking postgame was that which Harper directed at Knight as he joined the pile-up at home plate. Cameras caught Harper pointing at Knight and yelling a profanity, before turning back to celebrate.
“I was pretty upset. I don’t think it was right for him to [eject me],” Harper said. “I let him hear what I had to say. Let him hear it again. So what?”
Harper described the exchange as including “a couple choice words.” Asked if he may get a fine for that verbeage, Harper said “If I do, I do. I’ll pay it . . . maybe he’ll get fined, too.”
That Robinson homered so soon after the ejection meant it did not cost the Nationals that Harper was no longer available, in what, at the time, was a tie game in the ninth inning.
“You never want to get thrown out in that situation,” said Harper, who Baker said was not alone in voicing disagreement with the call on Espinosa — a pitch that, according to MLB.com’s pitch tracker, actually was a strike by an inch or two.
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