After a volatile night with three O's ejected from tonight's 5-0 loss to Minnesota, pitching coach Rick Kranitz and Ty Wigginton talked about their ejections. (Roch has posted comments from Juan Samuel, who was also tossed). Kranitz was ejected after Wigginton's ejection for arguing a safe call at first base. Kranitz was tossed by home plate ump Bill Hohn. "I didn't say anything," Kranitz said. "I sarcastically clapped in the way that the umpire, I guess Bill Hohn took offense to. Yeah you know I shouldn't have done that. It wasn't the right thing to do, but you know, you get frustrated. Especially when Kevin's been on the mound, crazy things have happened when he pitched. And he was on a pretty good roll on the time, it was reaction, shouldn't have happened. And you know, what are you going to do?

"Sure there's frustration. I think anytime you are not winning ball games, as many as we think we should be winning. Pavano had that game in hand obviously. That call didn't change the outcome of the game by any stretch of the imagination. It was just frustration on everybody's part. I think we're all tired of losing some ball games. And when something happens and it doesn't go our way, you say and do things you shouldn't do. I was a little bit surprised with [the ejection.] Yeah, I am. I'm surprised." I asked Kranitz if the ejections in some way could be a positive, to see himself, Wigginton and Samuel show the passion and fire that they did. "Certainly. You know, we want to win. And we want to win bad ,and you could just see the competitiveness in Wiggy and how he went about it. It's also frustration too, which unfortunately, I should probably stop talking." Wigginton was ejected by crew chief and first base umpire Gary Darling for arguing a play at first base where he felt he tagged J.J. Hardy out, yet the call was safe. "I don't think they'll be anything other than a normal ejection. In baseball you've got the option of questioning a call, and he ejected me for questioning a call. "You get the leadoff guy on and he goes first pitch and we get him hung out to dry. I felt he was out. Getting that leadoff guy out would be a big part in the game. You're four runs down, that's one swing of the bat and it's a tie ballgame. "He said I missed him. I felt he was out. We're in last place, and anytime you're in last place there's a lot of frustration in the season. Obviously that's not where we wanted to be. Frustration is all part of the game. Let's come out tomorrow and win a ballgame." Darling told me after the game that Wigginton did bump him in the chest and he will be filing a report on the play, presumably with the league office. Wigginton was pretty fired up but said at no point was there any chance of the argument escalating out of control. "I would never do anything that could get worse, I guess. You're arguing a call, he threw me out of the game, and I wanted to make sure he knew where I was coming from. He's a pro and I'm a pro and we'll go about our business tomorrow." Here is a link to the story with the umpires post-game comments.