Umpire stares at Bumgarner while massaging his hand, a breakdown
What Happened
On May 4, 2022, Madison Bumgarner started for the Diamondbacks against the Marlins and gave up a leadoff homer to Jon Berti in the bottom of the first. He settled down, but by the end of the inning he was barking at the home plate umpire over a couple of pitches he thought were strikes. As he walked off, Bumgarner stuck out his hand for the routine foreign-substance check from the field umpire. Instead of glancing at the hand, the ump locked eyes with him while slowly massaging it, and the standoff ended with Bumgarner getting ejected.
Why This Matters
The hand check itself was new. MLB rolled out the sticky-stuff crackdown in 2021, checking gloves and belts, then expanded it in 2022 to include pitchers' hands during inning changes. Usually it lasts two seconds and nobody notices. Here the umpire turned it into a staring contest, almost certainly because Bumgarner had been chirping him on the way to the dugout. That made the optics ugly. An official is supposed to administer a routine check, not bait a player he's annoyed with. Bumgarner had a long history of mound theatrics dating back to his Giants days, so this fit his reputation, but the umpire came off worse. Arizona manager Torey Lovullo, already staring down a bullpen game after losing his starter in the first, hopped the railing to argue and got nowhere.
With 2.1M views, this one sits in the top 6% of Jomboy's 1,583 breakdowns, proof that an awkward staredown travels further than most actual baseball.
Key Moments
Who / What Is Involved
Players: Madison Bumgarner.
Key Terms Mentioned
Full Transcript
we got madison bumgarner pitching against the marlins in the first inning bottom of the first inning john birdies up and this is how it goes down the first pitch ball one low next pitch outside 2-0 fastball down the middle absolute bomb home run it's like cut fastball or something like that bad start for mad bum but then he induces a fly out gets the first out next batter solaire another fly out gets the second out okay getting better and then we're gonna have strike one oh no he says where was that um says uh that was down he says i don't know about that so that's ball but he thought it was a strike the next pitch that's the strike on the outside it gets it from blue then he gets the swinging strike it's a one-two count he's gonna go back to the outside and try to get him looking and once it wants it doesn't get it so that's two strikes he thought he had didn't get the next pitches flied out to right field and as he walks to the dugout he's gonna let the ump know like i struck that guy out twice now you gotta make it out in the field blah blah blah yelling at him then he's gonna put his hand out as he walks to the next dump to allow him to feel it around a little bit and if you're wondering what the heck is this about i haven't seen this in baseball well pitcher's been using sticky stuff to cheat for a while they're cracking down on it last year they checked their glove and the belt and then this year they're like maybe just check their hand to see if that's sticky it usually...