Cleveland Guardians Terry Francona shouldn’t have been ejected for this

Cleveland Guardians manager Terry Francona was ejected from a game for the 45th time in his career during the Guards’ 8-4 win over the A’s Thursday night, and it shouldn’t have happened.

On the play in question, Steven Kwan safely stole second, but Elvis Andrus lands on top of the Guards’ outfielder. Kwan tried to get up to run to second, but fell back down because Andrus was still on top of him.

Tito marched out of the dugout to talk to  second base umpire Jeremie Rehak. The umpires met to discuss the play and decided that no, Kwan does not deserve third base. Tito got ticked and gave it to the umps.

Here’s the play (Twitter link) which I can’t embed because of lawyers, but here’s Tito getting kicked out, which I can show, because…lawyers.

The player has a right to the next base and his progress was impeded. Seems like Tito has a point.

Cleveland Guardians observations

1. Clutch hitting was on display during the series opener against the A’s, with Oscar Gonzalez and Andres Gimenez delivering timely hits.

2. Gimenez gave Cleveland its first lead of the night with a single in the bottom of the eighth with two and no one out. With a Fangraphs WAR of 2.1, Gimenez is currently the American League WAR leader at second base.

3. As for Gonzalez, it’s still befuddling the organization took so long to promote the right-hander. Heck, they weren’t even looking to keep him on the 40-man roster last offseason. He may not walk a ton, but he certainly doesn’t strikeout a lot, either. Plus, he puts the ball in play, usually with positive results. He’s batting .404 (.934 OPS) in 53 plate appearances spanning 13 games.

4. The Guardians are now a game above .500. It’s not a perfect roster, but it’s a young, energetic team that should keep us engaged throughout the summer.