A rough sixth inning in the Cardinals’ game against the Colorado Rockies turned into a full-blown broadcast meltdown, with St. Louis analyst Brad Thompson unloading on home plate umpire Doug Eddings after a string of calls that had the Cardinals bench and booth fired up.
The inning began with the Cardinals still in control, up 4-1. By the time it was over, they were staring at a 6-4 deficit.
The first flashpoint came earlier in the frame on a play at third base, when Nolan Gorman appeared to tag out a runner but the ball popped loose after his glove hit the ground and the runner’s momentum drove into it. The safe call set the tone, and Thompson and Chip Caray both picked up on the edge in Eddings’ announcement after the Cardinals challenged and lost the review.
Things escalated fast after that. Eddings took issue with how Rincon was wearing his hat and got into a conversation with catcher Leo Bernal about it.
That brought manager Oliver Marmol out of the dugout for a heated exchange. Marmol headed back to the dugout, and then Eddings hit Rincon with a pitch clock violation.
Marmol and the Cardinals dugout were furious, and Eddings tossed Marmol shortly after.
“During Bruihl’s warm-up pitches, Oli Marmol was speaking with the umpires
After walking back to the dugout, the HP umpire called a pitch clock violation on Bruihl
Marmol expressed frustration and was ejected #STLCards pic.twitter.com/9RHHM3BjEg
- STL Sports Central (@STLSprtsCntrl) September 5, 2026”
The hat issue became a point of ridicule from the Cardinals side, with even Marmol seen shifting his hat slightly in a way that drew attention to how strange the whole sequence felt.
Then came the call that really pushed Thompson over the edge: a play at the plate that he believed was plainly an out. Thompson first said, “He definitely got that left hand,” before losing his composure on the broadcast.
“How do you miss that? From where you’re sitting, where do you, how do you miss that?
If you’re Doug Eddings behind the plate. It almost looked like you want to miss that!
From right there!”
Thompson’s reaction was striking precisely because it was so out of character. He sounded completely fed up with the night by that point, and Caray wasn’t far behind him in venting about the umpiring and the hat situation.
Caray said, “sometimes umpires think it's their field and their game; it's not. They're the officials; they're in charge, but it's the players' game.”
By the end of the inning, the frustration had spilled beyond the booth and into the dugout, with Thompson and Caray both calling out the hat issue and saying the league should look into it.
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