Frustrations boil for Cubs in 20-5 loss
DAYTONA BEACH -- Daytona Cubs manager Jody Davis found it difficult to observe the calls starting pitcher Scott Taylor was receiving. It became so tough to watch, he soon decided he wasn't going to watch anymore.
Davis' ejection in the second inning highlighted a game where everything went wrong for Daytona. The Dunedin Blue Jays hammered the Cubs 20-5 Sunday afternoon at Jackie Robinson Ballpark.
Daytona pitchers allowed a season-high 18 runs on a season-high 22 hits. The team also matched a season-high by giving up five home runs. And three errors certainly did not help assuage the Blue Jays' scoring onslaught.
In spite of the rout, the most notable aspect of yesterday's game was an unusual rivalry that seemed to be brewing. The Cubs biggest foe was not the team in the visitors' dugout, but the person calling balls and strikes behind the plate.
"If you watch a lot of baseball, the good umpires you never notice they're there," Davis said. "It's almost at the point now where it's almost personal. Like (head umpire Masake Nonaka) is trying to do it."
Two days ago, Cubs starting pitcher Jeff Samardzija struggled to get called strikes in a 13-4 loss to Brevard County, Davis recalled.
With his frustration building with Nonaka since Samardizja's start, Davis said he made up his mind when he went out to the mound. Davis planned to speak his mind to Nonaka and let the umpire take it from there.
Midway through the second inning Davis walked to the mound to talk to Taylor. But Davis said his intention was to get Nonaka out to the mound.
Nonaka came to the mound to tell Davis to hurry it up. Davis brushed Taylor aside and started screaming at Nonaka until the subsequent ejection.
"It's too competitive in baseball to have to get more than three outs in an inning," Davis said.
Davis's tirade did little to motivate the Cubs. Instead Davis might have been happy not to have to watch the rest of the game from the dugout. The Blue Jays piled on 13 more runs after Davis' ejection, including an eight-run fourth inning.
Taylor (3-6) took the loss for Daytona after giving up five runs in two innings. But no Cubs pitcher could cool the Blue Jays bats. Dunedin put up at least two runs in each of the first five innings of the game, and began three innings with leadoff home runs.
Blue Jays' catcher David Corrente smacked two home runs. Carlo Cota and Eric Nielsen combined to go 10-for-10 with nine RBIs. A.J. Wideman (3-1) earned the win for the Jays after six innings.
The Cubs faced a 15-run disadvantage before Jeff Culpepper knocked in the team's first run in the bottom of the fourth inning. A two-run homer by Alberto Garcia later that inning cut the Dunedin lead to 12 runs, but a rally never seemed remotely plausible for Daytona.
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