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Former Minnesota Twins pitching coach escorted out of stadium after ejection

Wes Johnson got heated during a college baseball game between Georgia and Kennesaw State.

Joe Nelson

Georgia coach Wes Johnson gets animated during a NCAA Athens Regional baseball game against UNCW in Athens, Ga., on Saturday, June 1, 2024. Georgia won 11-2.
Georgia coach Wes Johnson gets animated during a NCAA Athens Regional baseball game against UNCW in Athens, Ga., on Saturday, June 1, 2024. Georgia won 11-2. / Joshua L. Jones / USA TODAY NETWORK
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Remember Wes Johnson? The Minnesota Twins pitching coach is in his second season as head coach at the University of Georgia and he went a bit viral Tuesday night for getting ejected and walked out of the ballpark by security.

What happened? According to social media posts from people who were watching the game, Johnson was ejected after arguing with the umpire over a pitch clock violation called on a pinch hitter in the seventh inning.

It's unclear why a security officer was needed to escort him away from the ballpark.

Georgia was trailing 4-2 to in-state foe Kennesaw State when Johnson was ejected. Later that inning, the Bulldogs made it 4-3 on a mammoth home run by Slate Alford. They tied it on a home run by Ryan Black in the eighth, and they scored two more runs for a 6-4 lead—which turned out to be the final score—in the ninth.

After the game, Johnson indicated that getting tossed helped fire up his team.

"We were doing anything to get these guys jump started," Johnson said during a postgame radio interview, according to the Athens Banner-Herald. "It was a long weekend, long road trip. We got back home (from UNC Wilmington) and had to get back over here. ...Emotions, yeah, they boil over sometimes."

Georgia is ranked No. 8 in the nation in Johnson's second season. He was the first college pitching coach ever to make the jump to MLB pitching coach when the Twins hired him in 2018. He stayed with Minnesota through the 2022 season before taking the head coaching job at LSU. He led the Tigers for two seasons, including winning the national championship in 2023, before being hired at Georgia.

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Joe Nelson
JOE NELSON

Joe Nelson has more than 20 years of experience in Minnesota sports journalism. Nelson began his career in sports radio, working at smaller stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before moving to the highly-rated KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. While there, he produced the popular mid-morning show hosted by Minnesota Vikings play-by-play announcer Paul Allen. His time in radio laid the groundwork for his transition to sports writing in 2011. He covers the Vikings, Timberwolves, Gophers and Twins for On SI.

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