Umpire: Angels Coaches 'Unprofessional'

Updated, 10:30 PM:

BOSTON -- Manager Mike Scioscia strongly disputed umpire Rick Reed's description of Wednesday's postgame confrontation between the umpires and Angels coaches.

Told that Reed described Angels coaches as "unprofessional and unbecoming of a professional team," Scioscia said, "It was along the lines of, 'You've got to be kidding me.' I don't think there's any issue there at all.

"That's absolutely wrong. We had an emotional team. We respected their space. ... A lot of it was not even directed at them. It was guys venting.

"Yeah, there's some profanity. You know what? In an emotional game like that, there's going to be some venting that's going to be done."

Reed implied some Angels coaches might be suspended by Major League Baseball. Said Scioscia, "We've talked to the league, too."

Scioscia even fired back at umpire Mark Wegner, whom he said "came back [up the tunnel] to confront one of our coaches. If anything, a little lesson in professionalism for Mark Wegner needs to be discussed."

Reed said Scioscia "made an attempt to quiet his coaches down. He also made a comment that I thought incited the situation."

Responded Scioscia: "I made a quiet comment to Rick Reed, and that's between me and him."

Original story:

After a few calls went against them in Wednesday's 9-8 loss to the Red Sox, especially a ball four to pinch hitter Nick Green that forced in a run, the Angels had some strong quotes about the umpiring.

But what will get them in trouble is what they said on the field.

Fenway Park is one of the few stadiums where the umpiring crew has to leave the field through a dugout, in this case the visitors'. And Angels coaches Alfredo Griffin and Mike Butcher seemed to confront the umpires immediately after Wednesday's game ended.
"Their deportment leaving the field, going through the Angels dugout, left a lot to be desired," Rick Reed, the home-plate umpire Wednesday, said before Thursday's game. "I was disappointed in the coaches. Coaches are usually the guys who try and stop any kind of friction that develops in the course of a game. But they were initiating it last night. I'm not pleased with the way they said things or their presentation. Major League Baseball has been notified, and probably something will come of it.

"I would think there would be a coach or two regretting their actions today."

Without naming the coaches in question, Reed called them "unprofessional and unbecoming of a professional team."

Reed said Angels manager Mike Scioscia "made an attempt to quiet his coaches down. He also made a comment that I thought incited the situation."

In his media session after the game, Scioscia said, "I was surprised. It's a good umpiring crew. We really feel strongly they missed a couple of times. ... What was the count at the end, three-and-four to Green?"

Closer Brian Fuentes, who threw the pitch to Green, intimated that the umpires were intimidated by the Fenway crowd.

"It's a big pitch, a huge pitch," Fuentes said after the game. "I'm buckling down. The hitter's buckling down. [Reed] needs to do the same."

Having looked at replays, Reed said the final pitch to Green was "borderline" and that he called it a ball partly because catcher Mike Napoli brought up the ball after catching it.

"It very well could have been a strike," said Reed, in his 28th season as a big-league umpire. "It was a pitch that was at the bottom of the strike zone."