Perez blows up after loss

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By Mark Zuckerman

The meltdown the Washington Nationals had avoided to date during a season that continues to nose-dive to depths not previously seen in these parts finally came Tuesday night.

It came from left-hander Odalis Perez, who was ejected in the third inning of the Nationals' 2-0 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks after getting called for a balk twice in the inning and later referred to plate umpire Angel Hernandez as "just stupid, an idiot."

And it came in lesser terms from manager Manny Acta, who was critical of Hernandez for the balk calls, of Perez for letting his emotions get the best of him and of his offense for failing to score a run off a ripe Brandon Webb.

"Just a little mind-boggling to me that this guy takes the mound for us every five days, and nobody else calls a balk on him, and this guy drops two on him in one night," Acta said. "But it didn't make a difference because we didn't score any runs anyways."

The Nationals fell to 23 games under .500 for the first time since coming to the District in 2005.

The two balk calls came on consecutive batters. With a man on first and two outs, Hernandez flagged Perez for stepping toward the mound while making a pickoff throw to first.

Perez didn't like the call but went right back to work. Chris Young singled in the night's first run, and during the next at-bat, Perez again made the pickoff move to first.

Again, Hernandez called a balk, and this time, Perez immediately jawed at the umpire, said something he shouldn't have and was ejected.

That only set Perez off more. He walked toward Hernandez and continued to yell, appearing to say: "I'm not going! I'm not going!" Restrained by both Acta and pitching coach Randy St. Claire, Perez kept arguing on his way back to the dugout, firing off one last round of remarks before heading down the steps and to the clubhouse.

"That's the third or fourth time he called balk on me," Perez said. "I lost the game twice. It's like he's got something personal against me. And I hate that. I'm a professional."

Perez, who had not had a balk called on him since 2006, indeed was cited at least once before by Hernandez: on June 24, 2003, while pitching for the Dodgers.

"I know I'm going to get fined, but I don't care," he said. "I want to protect myself and protect my teammates, too, because he's been [expletive] the whole year. When people call balk on me, I've been doing the same [expletive] move the entire year. So why does he have to call it twice in the same inning?"

Hernandez, through a Nationals spokesman, declined to speak to a pool reporter.

While sympathizing with Perez, Acta would have preferred his starters hadn't gotten himself ejected.

"Of course I understand his reaction, but where did his emotions get us?" the manager said. "They didn't erase the balks. They didn't put a run on the board. Meanwhile, we kill our bullpen. Everybody has a different DNA. I guess not everybody can control their emotions, but that really didn't help us."

Forced to turn to his bullpen in the third inning, Acta actually got an impressive performance. Both of Arizona's runs were unearned: the first a result of Cristian Guzman's error in the third, the second a product of Roger Bernadina mishandling a line-drive single to center in the sixth.

That overall pitching performance should have been enough, but alas the Nationals' woeful lineup again was no match for Webb, who has dominated them.

The sinkerball specialist was a bit wild Tuesday night, throwing 112 pitches, which forced him from the game after only six innings. Still, he didn't allow a run, the third straight time the Nationals have failed to score against him.

Washington did have its chances Tuesday. Twice in the early going Webb had runners on the first and third with one out yet emerged unscathed. In each case, Wily Mo Pena struck out, swinging at several pitches in the dirt.

"I didn't even think he had his best stuff tonight," Acta said of Webb. "He left a lot of pitches up in the zone. When he had to, he made pitches, and we just weren't patient enough. We chased pitches out of the zone in those situations."