TORONTO, Ont. – Speaking in absolutes is never a good thing. That is to say, speaking in absolutes is rarely a good thing.

It’s easy to sit back and opine that winning teams always do certain things, or a team cannot do certain things if it wants to win, but those opinions – absolutely – are never true. Good teams do bad things all the time, and overcome the "unacceptable" to win championships. Bad teams show the traits of championship teams quite often, just not nearly often enough.

Still, there are things that should never happen on a team that is trying desperately to make its way back into the thick of a playoff race, and we saw a huge one in the Toronto Blue Jays’ loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday when Jose Bautista got himself thrown out in the sixth inning.

Arguably the Blue Jays’ best hitter, Bautista has long had issues with the way umpires call balls and strikes on him, and though he hasn’t been nearly as demonstrative this season about what he perceives to be poor calls, he certainly hasn’t been shy about making his opinions known. The slugger famously told sportsnet.ca’s Shi Davidi last season that he has trouble with his "production being affected by someone else’s mediocrity."

Right or wrong, Bautista went too far in his third at-bat on Sunday afternoon. He thought the 1-1 pitch he took was low, home plate umpire Bill Welke disagreed. He thought the 3-2 pitch he took was low, and Welke disagreed with that, as well. In disbelief, Bautista let his feelings be known, pleading his case with Welke after having been rung up despite knowing that no umpire in recorded history has changed his mind on a ball/strike call.

Bautista wasn’t visibly angry. He didn’t raise his voice or get in Welke’s face. There was no kicking of dirt, throwing of bats or helmets, or drawing of lines in the dirt. Bautista said his piece, and Welke signalled to him that he’d had enough and it was time to go back to the dugout, but he didn’t. The Blue Jays’ slugger still had more that he wanted to say and Welke didn’t want to hear it, so the umpire threw Bautista out of the game.

Did Welke have a quick trigger finger? Probably. But he did let Bautista talk for a bit before telling him enough was enough. Does David Ortiz complain a lot more and not get the heave on a regular basis? Absolutely. Should Bautista have known better than to put himself in danger of being run? Yes.

It doesn’t matter whether Welke was right to eject Bautista. What matters is that Bautista put himself in a position where it was possible that a too-quick-to-react umpire could throw him out of the game. No matter how right Bautista felt he was (PitchTrax said both disputed pitches were strikes, Pitch F/X said they were both balls), he has to realize that it’s far more important for him to stay in the game than to make sure Welke knows he made a bad call.

Bautista let his frustration get the best of him and his need to put the umpire in his place was ahead of his team’s need to win a game. It’s the only time that’s happened this season, but that’s one time more than it should be happening.

As a result, Bautista — the major-league leader in on-base percentage — didn’t come to the plate in the eighth inning of a tie game with one out and nobody on to try to start a rally. He wasn’t in right field in the top of the 10th inning to catch a fly ball that his replacement, Nolan Reimold, dropped, resulting in the winning run eventually coming around to score. Finally, it was Reimold, not Bautista, who came to the plate with runners on the corners and two out in the bottom of the 10th, striking out to end the game.

Was the Blue Jays’ loss Bautista’s fault? Of course not. When a team only scores one run in 10 innings, it’s tough to win a ballgame. Even after Bautista had been ejected, the Blue Jays tied the game and put the tying run on third base with nobody out with Jose Reyes and Melky Cabrera coming up in the 10th. Still, Bautista has to know better.

A lot of baseball is about things that players can’t control and rare are the things that they can. Staying in a ballgame was something the Blue Jays’ best player could certainly control, and he chose to put himself in the position where he lost that control.

With September looming and no margin for error the rest of the way, mistakes in judgement like that are difficult to overcome.