Jered Weaver gets fed up with Kyle Seager’s antics, plunks him, gets ejected

There was a little bit of a temper tantrum face-off Wednesday night between Los Angeles Angels pitcher Jered Weaver and Seattle Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager. It ended with Seager getting hit by a pitch, Weaver getting ejected and Seager gloating after the game that he’d gotten Weaver to “quit on his team.”

If you were looking for September MLB drama, here’s some. Just the other kind of drama. Like, the kind you find on Bravo.

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The theatrics transpired during Seager’s at-bat in the fifth inning. He took the first pitch, stepped out of the batter’s box, got back in and held his hand up to ask for time out while he dug in. It was a tad egregious, but nothing completely out of the ordinary in baseball. Still, Weaver got visibly upset, so Seager was even more pronounced the second time around.

It was pretty obvious he was trying to get a reaction out of Weaver and he certainly did. Weaver’s next pitch hit Seager in the back and Weaver was immediately ejected.

The clash didn’t end there, of course. They both had something to say in the clubhouse. In this he-said-he-said, we’ll start with Weaver, as relayed by MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez:

“It’s not when he’s ready, it’s when we’re both ready,” Weaver added. “I was on the rubber ready to go, he’s standing in the box. Just because he has his hands up doesn’t really mean anything. If you’re going to do that, step out of the box or keep a foot out or do something. When you’ve got both feet planted in there and you’re looking at me, I assume that you’re ready to go. I don’t know if Derek Jeter did that in his third year or fourth year or not. I don’t know. It seemed like he was ready and I was ready, so I was ready to make a pitch.”

Seager, meanwhile, was more celebratory. From the L.A. Daily News:

“It definitely escalated and he handled it the way he wanted to. But from my perspective he quit on his team and I didn’t quit on mine,” Seager said. “If you hit me there it was pretty obvious what was going to happen, he was going to be out of the game. I guess he was tired of pitching.”

They both looked a bit silly in this ordeal, honestly, but Seager has to be looked at as the “winner” for managing to get inside Weaver’s head. Plus, his team won the game 3-1, which certainly doesn’t help the Angels as they try to stay in wild-card contention.

[Elsewhere: Bryce Harper joins elite company with his 40th homer.]

But while we’re handing out awards, credit where it’s due to Weaver — the soft-throwing veteran — for having the best zinger. Even at his own expense.

“It was only 82 or something,” Weaver said, “so I think it’ll be all right. I don’t think it’ll keep him out of the lineup.”

— Alden Gonzalez (@Alden_Gonzalez) September 17, 2015