Umpires make head-shaking call in midst of Astros-Twins tensions

As tensions rose in Tuesday night’s game between the Minnesota Twins and Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park, the umpires blew a call that quickly overheated Twins manager Rocco Baldelli and eventually led to his ejection.

Tuesday’s game between the Minnesota Twins and Houston Astros featured a head-shaking decision by the umpires

In the bottom of the fifth inning on Tuesday night, Houston’s Jose Altuve was hit by a pitch by Minnesota Twins starter Aaron Sanchez, who pitched in four games for Houston in 2019 and was Altuve’s teammate. Houston’s All-Star second baseman didn’t seem pleased about being plunked and tempers flared from there.

And yes, that’s right, during the war of words, Minnesota’s coaches interacted with Sanchez on the mound. It also counted toward a total of two mound visits for the Twins that inning, meaning that the visitors had to pull their starting pitcher from the game. It was a stunning development that caught most in attendance, including Baldelli, off guard.

A mound visit … in the middle of trying to keep an on-field altercation from happening? It certainly seems like some warped logic and forced Minnesota to go to its bullpen much earlier than it had originally planned.

Down 2-0 at the time of Altuve’s at-bat, the Twins would have their next two pitchers (those inserted after Sanchez left the game) give up one run each as Houston went on to record a heated 4-2 victory.

Baldelli was still shaking his head about “a really unusual play” after the game was over.

Give Baldelli credit however. Once he knew the situation and that Sanchez would have to be pulled from the game, he gave his bullpen as long as he could with his tirade to get warm and ready to come into the game.