San Francisco Giants pitcher Adrian Houser walks toward the dugout during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Miami Marlins in San Francisco, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Jeff Chiu/Associated Press
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Adrian Houser earned his first career ejection in the midst of the San Francisco Giants’ outrage over Heliot Ramos’ catwalk-deflected homer getting disallowed. He didn’t really get his money’s worth, though.
The Giants starter, who played with the Rays last year, said he didn’t say any of the magic words that would earn an ejection — all he did was make the eye-pointing finger gesture to second-base Vic Carapazza and then toward where the catwalk is, as if to say, “You needed to be looking there.”
“They got it wrong,” Houser said. “All I was saying was, ‘That’s on you, Vic, you’ve got to see that,’ because he’s the umpire out at second. Everybody knows — they’ve been here to the Trop, everybody knows the rules — it hits the catwalk and it’s fair, it’s a homer.”
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Boom, home-plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt ejected him, along with director of pitching Frank Anderson, a most unlikely duo to get tossed.
“Well, it’s two Oklahoma guys!” Houser said with a laugh.
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The Giants remain miffed that Wendlestedt said “Who do you think you are?” to Anderson and that the crew also mocked manager Tony Vitello and Anderson for their college background, with jabs about “rah-rah” and pompoms. The team is likely to bring up this behavior from the crew to the league when reports are filed about the incident.
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Meanwhile, the Giants are certain Ramos’ ball, which initially was listed on the Statcast measurements on the Tropicana Field as 424 feet — a homer, was out, and some players had even heard from Rays players that they’d seen the ball hit the catwalk and plunge down, which was evident from Cedric Mullins’ sudden dash in after heading to the wall.
“You could tell from their players’ reactions, none of them reacted at all when we were stopping and saying, ‘Homer!’,” Houser said. “A Gold Glove center fielder doesn’t race up to the wall like he’s going to try to rob a home run and then run 20 feet in, and we all saw the scoreboard flash 424. It was easy to tell that ball was totally smoked, then all of a sudden goes straight down.”
Anderson declined comment, but his son, former A’s starter Brett Anderson, chimed in with a light-hearted tweet: “Took me 12 years to get ejected from a MLB game…only took my dad 33 games.”
Numerous Giants said Anderson had told Carapazza he should have hustled out to the outfield to make the call. Carapazza appeared to jog a dozen feet or so toward left center for a view of the play.
Upcoming move, or moves? The Giants were still determining who will start Monday’s game against the Padres, with the likely candidates Triple-A Sacramento starters Carson Whisenhunt and Trevor McDonald — but Whisenhunt is scheduled to pitch for the River Cats this afternoon.
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A bullpen game is a vague possibility, but hasn’t been discussed quite as much, Vitello said Sunday morning.
Given the Giants’ recent stumble, could other transitions loom? Jerar Encarnacion hasn’t been used much and the outfielder hasn’t been all that effective in his brief appearances, batting .188 with no homers or RBIs, one walk and eight strikeouts. Another outfielder, Will Brennan, is also little used, but he does give the Giants a left-handed bat off the bench.
(Infielder Christian Koss also is getting little time, but he’s an excellent fielder, baserunner and the position-player pitcher, so he’s going nowhere.)
The Giants are loathe to bring up a top prospect only to sit, and there’s no real spot for Bryce Eldridge, given that Rafael Devers is the first baseman and Casey Schmitt the DH.
However, Eldridge is batting .333 with a .963 OPS at Sacramento, and the Giants are struggling to score. Extremely useful Jesus Rodriguez, who can play everywhere except shortstop and pitcher, is batting .330, and he can catch. Either might be a nice addition if they can actually be wedged in on a regular basis, but neither would be called up for a strictly bench role.
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At this point, the Giants are open to just about anything to get the season turned around, though. Don’t be surprised if there is some sort of move beyond one to address the starting pitching vacancy Monday, or perhaps a move later in the week.
In addition, reliever Sam Hentges (shoulder-capsule surgery) is getting close to the end of his rehab assignment and could be added to the big-league roster this week. Batters are hitting .091 off the lefty in his seven outings with the River Cats.