Padres Editorial: Pat Murphy Ejected for Fifth Time This Season

You can’t say that interim manager Pat Murphy hasn’t had his heart in the game this season. Murphy has now been ejected 5 times in the 82 games since he has taken over for stoic Bud Black. The results of his managing have been mixed, but I appreciate the passion he has shown.

More from Padres News

Bud Black started the season and led the team to a 32-33 contest. Murphy has only led the team to a 10 game under .500 record despite showing emotion that Black never shared.

Can you blame him? Earlier in a game this week as reported by Ben Rosenhart, it was another day in the disappointing Padres 2015 season. Tyson Ross pitched 6 strong innings and left with a lead. Then? The bullpen completely imploded. Murphy couldn’t stand for it and wound up getting ejected.

To me there are different types of ejections. There is the pure anger ejection, when a manager has been jawing back and forth with an umpire over balls and strikes and eventually it hits a boiling point. There is the quick hook ejection, when a manager makes such an egregious call that the manager HAS to be ejected. Then the third kind – which most of Murphy’s have been – and I believe is the most important – is the ejection that must be made to stand up for his players.

For example, by Murphy getting ejected in the game with Tyson Ross, he was making a point both to his bullpen to step up, and to his starting pitcher that he has his back. “These kinds of performances will not be accepted” the ejection signifies, as well as to his starting pitcher that it is not his fault.

Balancing the art of the ejection is not an easy one to manage, because if it doesn’t work you look like a pure hothead who is just frustrated. If it works, you are a managerial genius. It is believed that the 5 ejections as interim manager is a major league record and the most since an interim manager in 1908. Murphy has proven that his energy goes in a complete opposite direction than Bud Black – but we just still don’t know what difference that is making.

As the season winds down one of the biggest questions of the Padres will be who the manager is next year. Whether or not Murphy has shown that he can be the man to lead the Padres to the promised land will be asked by AJ Preller and his team, and Murphy is running out of time to show a record improvement to match his passion for winning.

More from Friars on Base

Home/Padres News