Don Mattingly says Andre Ethier was yelling about umpire’s call, not at him

Say this: It didn’t look pretty. Not even a little.

Andre Ethier, who has a well-earned reputation as one of baseball’s more emotional players, was captured on video screaming in Manager Don Mattingly’s direction in the dugout during the bottom of the third inning Thursday.

Justin Turner had led off the with a double. Ethier was up next, and his at-bat was not his best of the night. He took a pitch, a called strike, fouled off a pitch and then flied out to left. Turner remained at second. He would steal third, but never did score.

But when Ethier returned to the dugout, at one point he started screaming, seemingly at Mattingly, made a couple of firm hand gestures and then angrily walked away. Mattingly left dog-faced and seemingly frustrated. Lip-reading not being my specialty, I could not figure out what had upset him.

But, according to Mattingly, Ethier wasn’t mad at him but at the umpire for calling the strike. He can be a touchy guy.

“There was nothing there other than he was mad about the ump’s call, that he missed the call in there,” Mattingly said. “I was trying to settle him down. I didn’t want him thrown out of the game, and Andre’s pretty emotional. It was nothing more than trying to settle him down.”

If so, Ethier did not jump on that as an easy way out. He just avoided discussing it when asked in the clubhouse following the 3-2 defeat that ended the Dodgers’ season.

“I think you guys are off point here,” Ethier said. “Did that have a bearing on this game, whether we won or lost? It didn’t. The point is we lost the game. Don’t dwell on things that didn’t have a difference in the game, on whether we won or lost that game. Me and Donnie didn’t make it out to be anything, so you don’t.”

Maybe there was nothing there. Maybe Mattingly made a comment to Ethier -- who in the first inning had driven in a run that gave the Dodgers a 2-1 lead -- about his failure to hit the ball to the right side and advance Turner to third. Maybe Ethier just needs to vent every so often.

This outburst came with a national audience watching, however, in a decisive Game 5. And it made for prime viewing, innocent or not.

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