CHICAGO — White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson received a three-game suspension and an undisclosed fine for making contact with home plate umpire Nick Mahrley in the seventh inning of Oakland’s 7-3 victory Friday night at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Anderson took a borderline first pitch from reliever Domingo Acevedo, which was called a strike by Mahrley and was shown to have clipped the top of the strike zone by Statcast, and made his displeasure immediately known. The two exchanged words, although Anderson never showed up the umpire and seemed to be moving away from Mahrley when he was ejected mid at-bat.
In Anderson’s ensuing ire, his batting helmet bumped the front of Mahrley’s hat. Michael Hill, Major League Baseball’s senior vice president for on-field operations, made the suspension announcement Saturday evening.
Anderson’s suspension had been scheduled to start Saturday, but he has elected to appeal. The discipline will be held in abeyance until the process is complete, so Anderson was at shortstop and leading off for the White Sox in Game 2 of the Oakland series Saturday night.
The American League All-Star starting shortstop was suspended one game in April for flipping the middle finger at a Guardians fan in Cleveland, but that suspension was reduced to a fine. Anderson missed the first two games of the 2022 regular season in Detroit as part of a carryover suspension from ‘21, when he unknowingly made contact with umpire Tim Timmons while supporting teammate José Abreu during an on-field melee, also in Detroit.