Beltre Tossed For Friendly Smack Talk

"That's one," Felix Hernandez shouted out to Adrian Beltre (in Spanish) during warmups for the top of the 3rd inning last night. Hernandez had been playfully smack-talking his ex-teammate all week, saying he would strike him out 3 times to make him his 1,000th strikeout victim.

Beltre hollered back, still in his native language, that he would take Hernandez deep in his next at bat if he left a pitch up in the zone. With that remark, Beltre swiped his hands across his knees to indicate the bottom of the zone in which he'd take a pitch from his Seattle Mariners "little brother" over the monster.

And then, he was gone. Ejected from the game.

Rookie umpire Dan Bellino misinterpreted Beltre's friendly banter for something else. Despite the fact that Adrian was shouting into the Seattle dugout at Felix, Bellino must have saw something that made it seem like a knock against himself. In the previous frame, Beltre disagreed with a called third strike that appeared to be low. On their way back out to the field, Hernandez reminded Beltre that he was one-third of the way there.

"He's talking to Felix," Marco Scutaro beckoned to Bellino upon the ejection. What was Bellino's response?

"It doesn't matter," the young umpire fired back.

"What do you mean it doesn't matter?" said Scutaro, who just might have been as infuriated as I am about it. It doesn't matter? How does it not matter that he was having a conversation in Spanish with an ex-teammate and you tossed him for it? A close game in a pennant race, and you eject Boston's best hitter against a Cy Young-caliber flamethrower? Well, thanks for the effort, but you have basically shattered our chances of winning this game, haven't you?

"He got in the midst of something he didn't know. It shouldn't have happened. It's a shame," said Terry Francona, who was also ejected merely for trying to get an explanation out of Bellino. Francona is as direct and to the point as you could be. He got into something he didn't know -- a Spanish conversation between two good friends. And he jumped to conclusions on Beltre. He acted irrationally. And then he tossed our leading offensive player in just about every category. No, it shouldn't have happened. And yes, it is a shame.

The Sox could have moved within 4.5 games of both teams at the top of the AL East had they won that game. Instead, they remain 5.5 -- still a 0.5-game improvement yesterday from the day before -- heading into a 3-game set at Tropicana Field. Without demanding too much -- we need a sweep here, boys.