Source: USA TODAY

Their seasons just passed the one-quarter mark, so it’s too soon for the San Francisco Giants and Washington Nationals to draw definitive conclusions when they size each other up Monday.

Yet both teams enter a three-game series at AT&T Park wondering if poor performances that seemed uncharacteristic might be the norm.

For the Giants, it is the grim showing of a starting rotation that was the bedrock of World Series championships in 2010 and 2012. Sunday, the Colorado Rockies beat them 5-0, the Giants’ third loss in row and fifth in six games. Their starting pitchers were on the hook for all of the losses, and their 4.88 ERA ranks them 14th among 15 National League rotations.

“Is it a rough patch or a streak or a small sample? We’ll see,” manager Bruce Bochy told reporters Sunday before Barry Zito yielded five runs in 5 2/3 innings. “I will say it’s been rough for those guys this week. But I think we need to get further before we can answer that question better.”

Bochy said right-hander Ryan Vogelsong, who’s 1-4 with an 8.06 ERA, has “had the toughest go-round.”

Vogelsong might take solace in seeing the Nationals on Monday.

Heavy favorites to win the NL East, the Nationals fell to 23-21, 2 1/2 games behind the division-leading Atlanta Braves, with a 13-4 loss to the San Diego Padres. They rank 29th in the major leagues in batting average (.230) and on-base percentage (.292), are tied for 27th in runs (155) and are 28th in slugging (.373).

Right fielder Jayson Werth and catcher Wilson Ramos are on the disabled list and left fielder Bryce Harper was out of the lineup for a fourth time in six games since crashing into an outfield wall.

But poor performance — second baseman Danny Espinosa is batting .163— also has been a factor, as has inconsistency. First baseman Adam LaRoche has carried the Nationals during a 16-game hitting streak in which he’s batting .382 with four home runs. But that streak was preceded by a 1-for-35 stretch.

“You have to have a lot of patience sometimes in this job,” manager Davey Johnson said. “The middle of the lineup is swinging the bat very good, and other guys look like they’re starting to come around. Sometimes it just takes time to jell.”

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

Major League Baseball suspended umpire Fieldin Culbreth for two games and fined him an undisclosed amount after Culbreth’s crew allowed the Houston Astros to make an illegal pitching change Thursday night, a rare public reprimand of an umpire.

Culbreth, the crew chief for the game between the Astros and Los Angeles Angels, will serve his two-game suspension at a time to be determined. MLB also issued fines to the other three members of Culbreth’s crew: Brian O’Nora, Bill Welke and Adrian Johnson.

The suspension comes a day after MLB executive vice president Joe Torre issued a statement confirming that umpire Angel Hernandez erred in failing to overturn a call on video review in a Wednesday game between Cleveland and Oakland, costing the Athletics a game-tying home run. Hernandez was not otherwise disciplined.

As MLB readies for expanded video review, expected to land in 2014, Torre’s statement and Friday’s suspension of Culbreth perhaps indicates an expectation of greater accountability from its umpires.

“Umpires are the custodians of the game here,” said MLB executive vice president Joe Torre in a Friday interview on MLB Network. “They’re the people we all look to. Unfortunately they messed it up.

“It certainly isn’t a reflection of Fieldin Culbreth. I’d go to war to him and still would. No excuse; they just kicked it.”

Thursday’s flap unfolded in the seventh inning, when Astros manager Bo Porter inserted left-handed reliever Wesley Wright into the game, and Angels manager Mike Scioscia countered by sending up pinch-hitter Luis Jimenez, a right-handed batter, with the Astros leading 5-3.

Rule 3.05 (b) states a pitcher inserted into the game must face at least one batter, unless unless injury or illness prevents him from doing so.

Porter lifted Wright before he threw a pitch, calling on right-hander Hector Ambriz.

Scioscia immediately and vociferously argued, and Culbreth and his crew huddled at least three times on the field in an attempt to get the call correct. The Angels played the game under protest but rallied for a 6-5 victory.

Porter, in his first year as a major league manager, later said it was his belief that the rule had been amended to allow a pitching change to occur without a pitcher facing a batter. MLB’s ruling certainly debunked that theory.

Thursday night, Porter called Culbreth and apologized, and on Friday told reporters he felt bad that the umpires had to bear the brunt of his mistake.

Culbreth is in his first year as a crew chief, and has worked two World Series. He made his MLB umpiring debut in 1993.

“Me personally, I want to apologize to the whole crew,” Porter said Friday in Houston. “I stand corrected. Mike Scioscia was right. I feel bad I put (the umpires) in that position.

“It’s an honest mistake, but it’s obviously a mistake that we look at in (MLB) and we don’t want to have mistakes like that.”

Rule 3.05 (b) states: “If the pitcher is replaced, the substitute pitcher shall pitch to the batter then at bat, or any substitute batter, until such batter is put out or reaches first base, or until the offensive team is put out, unless the substitute pitcher sustains injury or illness which, in the umpire-in-chief’s judgment, incapacitates him for further play as a pitcher.”

MLB’s discipline of its umpires is almost always a private matter, as fines issued to umps are rarely acknowledged.

But Culbreth’s suspension is not unprecedented.

In 2007, umpire Mike Winters was suspended on Sept. 27 for the remainder of the season – roughly three games – for his conduct during an argument with then-San Diego Padres outfielder Milton Bradley. The Padres said Winters used profanity, and Bradley tore his ACL when manager Bud Black grabbed him to keep the confrontation from escalating.

In 2012, umpire Bob Davidson was suspended for one game for what MLB termed “repeated violations” in handling situations, culminating in an incident involving Philadelphia Phillies manager Charlie Manuel.

Torre termed the error by Culbreth and crew as “more of a mental mistake.” Culbreth will work behind home plate for Friday’s Tampa Bay Rays-San Diego Padres game in St. Petersburg, Fla.

“I talked to Fieldin a couple times today,” Torre said Friday, “and can’t tell you how bad he feels.”

PHOTOS: Getting the boot in baseball

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

Another day brought another embarrassing moment for major league umpires.

At least this time, they were joined by a manager who could be equally red-faced.

One day after Angel Hernandez cost the Oakland Athletics a game-tying home run by muffing a video review, Fieldin Culbreth’s crew in Houston failed to catch a rookie mistake by Astros manager Bo Porter that caused Thursday night’s game to be played under protest.

Unlike the A’s, the Los Angeles Angels managed to come back and defeat the Astros, so manager Mike Scioscia’s protest is rendered moot.

But that doesn’t erase the debacle that unfolded in the top of the seventh inning Thursday at Minute Maid Park.

With the Astros leading 5-3, Porter inserted lefty reliever Wesley Wright into the game, and Scioscia countered by sending up pinch-hitter Luis Jimenez, a right-handed batter.

It’s the sort of move-counter move that’s unfolded in the game for decades, one governed by rule 3.05(b), which states that a pitcher placed into the game must face one batter, unless injury or illness prevents him from doing so.

Porter, believing the rule had been amended, lifted Wright for right-hander Hector Ambriz.

Whoops.

Scioscia burst from the dugout with about the same speed as George Brett when his pine-tar home run was nullified and immedately protested. Three umpire huddles then ensued.

And Ambriz was allowed to pitch to Jimenez.

Porter’s take: “Technically, Wesley came in to pitch the batter that was scheduled to hit, but he pinch-hit for the batter that was scheduled to hit — which, from my understanding of the rule, you can bring in another pitcher to face the pinch-hitter.”

That would be news to hundreds of managers who have operated under a different assumption for decades. And there’s nothing in rule 3.05(b) to suggest such an interpretation is possible. And no indication that the rule, as Porter suggested, has been recently amended.

“I think the rule’s pretty clear,” Scioscia said afterward, his team’ comeback victory negating his need to posture.

Meanwhile, crew chief Culbreth ducked any notion of ump fallibility, noting that “All matters concerning protest go through the league office.”

Friday, Major League Baseball issued a statement confirming that the rule regarding pitching changes “was not applied correctly” and, regarding possible discipline for the umpiring crew, the situation was “being reviewed.”

That marks the second day MLB had to weigh in on an umpiring gaffe; Thursday, MLB vice president Joe Torre released a statement confirming the umps blew the video review in Cleveland.

The always delicate relationship among umps and the game’s central office only figures to get more tenuous with every misstep, along with the looming specter of expanded replay in the 2014 season.

But expanded replay won’t eliminate acts of incompetence, nor will it force those who commit them to display a level of accountability beyond the bobs and weaves of Hernandez and Culbreth on consecutive nights.

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Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.