Umpire Crew Working Orioles-Cardinals Series Can't Get Out of St. Louis Fast Enough

Stephen Douglas | May 22, 2024

The St. Louis Cardinals are straight up not having a good time in their series against the Baltimore Orioles this week. While the Cardinals won the first two games, the Orioles took a 3-0 lead before the game was delayed for rain on Wednesday afternoon. Despite solid results, the process has been frustrating as multiple people have been ejected for arguing balls and strikes with the umpire crew working the series.

On Wednesday, Cardinals manager Oli Marmol was thrown out by home plate umpire Charlie Ramos. Crew chief Laz Diaz immediately got involved, possibly because he's seen how angry Marmol can get with an umpire he doesn't agree with. While Marmol headed to the locker room he continued to exchange words and eventually drew a stern finger pointing from Diaz before everyone went about their business.

Oli Marmol has been ejected in the third inning. #STLCards

📺: Bally Sports | 📱: Bally Sports app pic.twitter.com/bECDNzspJ4

— Bally Sports Midwest (@BallySportsMW) May 22, 2024

The reason Marmol got tossed was that he let Ramos have it after a bad call against Paul Goldschmidt on a ball outside the zone that was called a strike. You may not find what happened on Lars Nootbaar's at-bat preceding at-bat that surprising. Nootbaar took three pitches way outside the zone as called strikes, which is enough to drive any player or manager a little crazy.

Unfortunately, that's not how things work in 2024. We know where the strike zone is supposed to be and where those pitches weren't. And we know that Nootbaar was ejected by the same crew on Tuesday when he was upset with getting called out looking on a pitch that was way inside. He made it back to the dugout before he got tossed and came back out to have more words with Mike Estabrook.

Things get heated early in this one. Lars Nootbaar has been ejected in the bottom of the first inning. #STLCards pic.twitter.com/Dub62NOMar

— Bally Sports Midwest (@BallySportsMW) May 21, 2024

These may have been bad calls. Noobaar and Marmol may have been rightly ejected for arguing balls and strikes. We may need robot umpires. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that these umpires and those Cardinals get the heck away from each other as soon as possible.

Editor's Note: The original version of this story had the Orioles winning the first two games of the series.