Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner was suspended for one game and fined an undisclosed amount by Major League Baseball on Tuesday for making contact with home plate umpire Rob Drake following a strike three call to end Monday’s game against the San Diego Padres.
MLB’s chief baseball officer Joe Torre announced the penalty Tuesday. Turner is appealing, delaying the suspension until after the appeals process.
Turner took a called third strike in the ninth inning, and showed his displeasure with the call, which ended the game with a 4-3 Dodgers’ loss. He then got into an animated argument with Drake and made contact with him. That brought Dodgers manager Dave Roberts out of the dugout in Drake’s direction to argue.
“I asked him, ‘You call that a strike?'” Turner said Monday, as quoted in The Los Angeles Times. “He told me it was right down the middle, which was pretty upsetting. If he thinks that’s down the middle … no matter, he was missing a lot of pitches throughout the night.”
Turner also said that Drake instigated the contact.
Turner was 3-for-5 on the night with a double and a home run, lifting his average for the season to .294 (128-for-435).
The Associated Press contributed to this report.