Yankees believe umpires should face consequences, too

DETROIT -- After plate umpire Bob Davidson ejected Yankees manager Joe Girardi and hitting coach Kevin Long in the seventh inning Saturday night, Nick Swisher said Davidson was "laughing" after tossing Girardi. That could not be corroborated, but Swisher said he would like to see consequences for umpires.

"In our line of work, things don't go well, you're looking for another job," Swisher said. "But anyway, we just have to keep going out there and playing the game. You can't pay attention to that stuff."

Yankees player rep Curtis Granderson agreed.

"Clearly there have been some mistakes, but they're human, they're going to make some mistakes," Granderson said. "But part of the game, though, is part of the mistake, sometimes there's got to be some consequences for it. Just for us as players there's consequences for us; we get errors, we get ruled out, we possibly get sent down. All that different stuff happens to us. There has to be a similar-type situation on the other end."

Granderson later said the confrontations with players/managers and umpires run both ways.

"Verbal assault toward the umpire obviously is grounds for ejection," he said. "But when I see highlights or clips at the end of the day, the aggression is on both sides, but you won't see an umpire get ejected in those situations."

Long politely declined to discuss his ejection, saying: "Joe's comments will stand."

Crew chief Jerry Layne spoke to a pool reporter afterward and shed little light.

"First of all,'' he said, "I make a policy to follow what Joe Torre has asked us to. I do not make a comment on anything like that until he makes a full report. And he hasn't been contacted yet. Bob's in the process of writing his report after he showers and puts his thoughts down on paper. And Joe Torre and Peter Woodfork will get the report, and you can get comments from them. Realistically, it's not fair for me to tell you, and then Joe Torre reads it online. It's got to be in that order.

"You know what? Joe Girardi is a good man. Whatever Joe Girardi said, I'm not going to go through and badmouth Joe Girardi, because he's a good man.''

Layne didn't want to know what Girardi said. "It doesn't bother me what he said, whether it was good or bad,'' Layne said. "If he said something bad, I'd think he was just upset at the moment. If it's good, that's Joe Girardi. So regardless of what he said, it wouldn't change my opinion of what I think of Joe, because I think very highly of Joe.''

Layne was told it was bad. "You know what?'' he said. "That's Joe's prerogative. If he said something that he might regret later, that's up to Joe. I don't have a problem with Joe. Never have. Hope I don't.''

Notes & quotes: The Tigers' Miguel Cabrera put the game's first run on the board in the fourth inning, jumping on Hiroki Kuroda's 1-and-0 pitch and sending it to a place few have seen baseballs go at Comerica, about three-quarters up the ivy-covered wall in dead center. He also homered in the eighth . . . Tigers leftfielder Don Kelly robbed Mark Teixeira of a home run in the fourth.