For the second consecutive night, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts who, prior to Wednesday night’s 4-2 loss to the NL West first-place San Francisco Giants had been ejected a total of six times in his seven seasons as the Dodgers manager, was ejected again during Thursday night’s brutal 5-3 loss that now has his team 3.0 games behind the division leaders; again for arguing balls and strikes, which carries an automatic ejection.

Although Roberts’ ejection on Wednesday night was for arguing a very close pitch that was called a ball by home plate umpire Andy Fletcher that was clearly within the strike zone, the checked swing call ruled no swing by first base umpire Ed Hickox on Thursday night was a blatantly blown call.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that he went and the game should have been over,” Roberts said postgame. “Eddie’s a really good umpire, been around for a long time, but in that spot, two contending teams, you just can’t miss that call. The game should have been over, and there’s just no other way to look at it.”

Asked what he said to his team after the game, Roberts summed it up perfectly.

“Nothing. There’s a lot of people that are really pissed off and I’m leading the way. We should have won that game and it’s a game that we really wanted, we had, and we didn’t,” Roberts answered, clearly holding back what he really wanted to say.

Of course, Hickox’s blown call wouldn’t have even been necessary had replacement Dodgers second baseman Sheldon Neuse properly played what should have been an easy game-ending 6-4 force out at second base on a toss from Dodgers shortstop Chris Taylor.

“Sheldon’s a heck of a ballplayer, heck of a defensive player,” Roberts said of Neuse, who had been recalled from Triple-A Oklahoma City earlier in the day. “But I just think right there in that situation, if we stretch, we get the guy and there’s no (video) replay. That’s part of baseball.”

The unfortunate victim of Thursday night’s Hickox-Neuse debacle was Dodgers right-hander Walker Buehler, who was yet again brilliant and had what should have been his 11th win of the season in the bank. In his 7.1 innings pitched, the 26-year-old Lexington, KY native and Dodgers first-round draft pick in 2015 out of Vanderbilt allowed only one run on five hits with one walk and nine strikeouts. But as he so often does, Buehler took the high road on Thursday night’s disaster.

“You just got to keep going,” Buehler said. “Obviously, we’ve got a lot of baseball left to play. It is what it is.”

What it is, is time for MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred to start holding MLB umpires accountable for blatant incompetence.

Yeah … I’m among those “really pissed off” people.

Play Ball!

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