Boston manager Alex Cora promised umpire Junior Valentine he wouldn’t get ejected before the start of the Red Sox’s series against the Houston Astros on Monday. He did anyway—though it took until Wednesday's series finale.
“He’s thrown me out probably two or three times,” Cora said, per Christopher Smith of Masslive.com. “I said, ‘Junior, I’m not gonna get thrown out. I promise you. My kids are watching the game and they hate it.’ So then I got thrown out today.”
Cora came onto the field in the sixth inning to question a potential balk from Astros ace Hunter Brown, who had already balked once in the frame. At that point, Houston led 2-1 after plating a pair of runs in the first inning.
The umpires decided not to issue a balk, and Boston stranded a runner at third to end the inning. Then, Houston’s Yainer Diaz launched a two-run homer in the bottom half that gave the Astros some cushion in an eventual 4-1 victory.
Cora exited the dugout again during a pitching change in the seventh and was ejected—although this time home plate umpire Ryan Blakney did the honors.
“I went out there (in the seventh) just to educate myself to be honest with you,” he said. “That’s what I told him. I want to learn, I want to know. I don’t know if he took it that I was being sarcastic. I wasn’t. And then I was walking back (to the dugout) and he threw me out.”
The controversial moment occurred when Brown transitioned from the regular windup to the stretch position in the middle of Romy Gonzalez’s at-bat. Cora believed Brown needed to declare the change in pitching stance but later admitted the umpires were correct. He said the confusion stemmed from past situations where the umpires have asked pitchers to declare.
Cora and the Red Sox will look to move past the incident when Boston begins a three-game series vs. the Miami Marlins on Friday night.