From the Detroit Free Press’ Jon Paul Morosi.
On Wednesday night, minutes after walking four batters and hitting another in a disastrous ninth inning, Joel Zumaya sat at his locker, chair turned inward. He stared straight ahead, and did not speak with reporters.
One day later, he left little unsaid.
Zumaya stood at the same locker and answered questions for 12 minutes, before the team departed following the postponement of today’s game with the White Sox.
Zumaya repeatedly scolded himself, both for his performance “ the lack of command led to two earned runs in two-thirds of an inning “ and his conduct toward Mark Wegner, the home plate umpire.
Zumaya admitted to œgetting real bigheaded about myself, said his concentration was œsomeplace else, and acknowledged that he yelled at Wegner œquite a few times about his strike zone.
œI™m a humble person, Zumaya said. œLast night, I was not humble. Last night, I was just being a jackass.
At one point, Zumaya said, œThat was embarrassing for me. That was embarrassing for Detroit.
Zumaya vowed that he would never behave that way again.
œMy apologies go to the umpire, Zumaya said. œI actually wanted to talk to him, tell him, ˜That™s not me,™ and (ask) if he could forgive me for disrespecting him like that.
œI yelled at him quite a few times, and that™s probably why the zone got really tight on me.
El Barto (11 K’s) was just as impressive in his 2nd start of ’07 as he was in his first last Saturday ; the Halos beat Seattle yesterday, 11-3 , as Vlad Guerrrero clobbered his 6th HR of the year, a two-run shot off former Met Jae Seo. Gary Matthews had 3 hits, but more importantly, did so without Arte Moreno asking him to pee in a cup.