Mets’ Carlos Mendoza gets ejected to protect livid Juan Soto after questionable strike calls
SAN DIEGO — Carlos Mendoza did not want Juan Soto to be ejected.
And so the Mets manager charged onto the field and got himself tossed instead.
Mendoza earned his fifth career ejection and third of the season in the third inning Monday night at Petco Park, where Soto was livid after an at-bat that ended in a called strike three.
The final pitch he saw was a knuckle curve from the Padres’ Dylan Cease that might have caught the outside edge, but Soto’s anger with home-plate umpire Emil Jimenez appeared to run deeper.
In his first at-bat, Soto fell into an 0-1 hole when a pitch that appeared at least several inches high was called a strike. Soto would later strike out swinging.
In his next turn at the plate, with a runner on second base and one out, Soto laid off a 2-1 knuckle curve that appeared outside.
Jimenez called it a strike, and Soto barked at him for several moments before resuming the battle with Cease.
Jimenez then rang up Soto on pitch eight of the at-bat, and Soto stepped into Jimenez’s face to argue.
Mendoza sprinted from the dugout to get in between the two, pushed Soto toward the dugout and then resumed an argument that ended with Mendoza gone and bench coach John Gibbons taking over.
Peter Alonso and first base coach Antoan Richardson took over holding back Soto from there.