Tough. Do your job better.

The major MLB baseball rules addition this season, and one that is, as I so sagely predicted many years ago, both popular and beneficial to the game’s integrity, is the ability of players to challenge ball and strike calls instantly and have a computer image almost immediately appear that either confirms or overturns the home plate umpire’s call immediately. The results of many games have already been affected by the new technology. Of course umpires hate it, especially bad umpires, like the infamous Angel Hernandez, who is an embarrassment to the game. For the best umpires, the system is mostly beneficial, because it shows how accurate they are. Umpires in general have tightened up their pitch calling because of the technology. In the past, they used to defiantly talk about “my strike zone.” The ABS system makes it indisputable that there is just one strike zone, and that’s the one in the rule book.

In yesterday’s game between the Washington Nationals and the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park, Boston’s best hitter, Willson Contreras, was called out on strikes after the first base umpire Nick Lentz ruled that his attempted check-swing had indeed crossed the plate. That call is (currently) unappealable and entirely within the umpires’ discretion. But as Contreras walked away from the plate to the dugout, he tapped his helmet in the manner in which a player signals that he is challenging a ball or strike call. Lenz threw him out of the game.

Contreras and Red Sox manager Chad Tracy were shocked, and came out of the dugout to argue against the ejection. Red Sox broadcasters were initially confused, since Contreras hadn’t said anything to the home plate umpire. (There are a few “magic words” that will guarantee a player’s exit). Then they saw that the video showed Lentz indicating the ejection and tapping his head to explain why.

“I called him out on appeal for the check swing, and as he was walking back to the dugout, he started gesturing, tapping his helmet, like he wanted to challenge something that is not a challengeable call,” Lentz explained to reporters. “And so [it was] disrespect, and again gesturing towards what he thought was an incorrect call, got him removed from the game.” The umpire claimed that it is an automatic ejection if a player makes that gesture in a mocking way. “It’s a lot like drawing a line in the dirt,” Lentz said.

No, it’s really not. Players standing at the plate and drawing a line to show how far a ball was out of the strike zone was obviously an attempt to show up an umpire and always resulted in an ejection, as did a batter curling his fingers around his eyes to say “you need glasses.” Those gestures neverfhappen any more, because the computer settles the issue. Most fans in the stands didn’t even notice Contreras’s gesture, nor did TV viewers, because the camera wasn’t on Contreras when he tapped his helmet.

Lentz added the gesture is “on the list for items for removal from the game.” If it is, I can’t find it, and if there was a memo, the players didn’t get it. Here is the current criteria for an umpire ejecting players: