Blue Jays fans have their last scrap with Joe West

Blue Jays fans got to witness the last ejection from Joe West

For the sake of not working my brain too hard, I thought I would start with the most recent example I can think of. In fact, it just so happens that Joe West’s ejection of Ryan Borucki was the last player given the “heave ho” in his illustrious career.

For those who may not remember, Borucki was thrown out because he hit Kevin Kiermaier of the Tampa Bay Rays. That’s only significant because this came a few days after Kiermaier had picked up the Blue Jays scouting report card that had fallen out of Alejandro Kirk’s gear at home plate. In fairness, you can’t exactly blame Kiermaier for what he did, even if the Blue Jays were pretty furious about it at the time. I’m also saying that as someone who doesn’t care for the Rays outfielder much at all.

Borucki was tossed from the game, and while manager Charlie Montoyo was pretty calm about the whole thing, the same couldn’t be said for pitching coach Pete Walker. The latter was very heated as he gave West a piece of his mind, and the incident ended up endearing Walker to many Blue Jays fans even more than he already was.

As much as I personally loved seeing the fire from Walker, I’ll also admit that West’s hands were pretty much tied in this case. There was a lot of tension between the two teams due to the incident with the scouting card, and we had been waiting for Kiermaier to get plunked for a few days. Chances are Walker was so upset because Borucki would go on to be suspended for the incident, which was a bit of salt in the wound for the Blue Jays.

Naturally, Joe West found himself in the middle of it.