Rays reliever Edwin Uceta has been suspended for two games after intentionally hitting Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos with a pitch, MLB announced Wednesday. Uceta was originally banished for three games, but had that punishment reduced to two ahead of Wednesday’s contest against the Phillies.
The two teams engaged in a benches-clearing spat on Tuesday night as part of a 9-4 Phillies victory (box score). The incident occurred during the bottom of the eighth inning, when Uceta plunked Castellanos in the back with a 96 mph sinker.
Castellanos took exception. Bryce Harper, who had been stationed at second base, did as well. Harper even walked from the bag to the mound to confront Uceta before being corralled by an infielder. Here’s the entire scene in all its motion picture glory:
Uceta was subsequently ejected from the game, with the Rays inserting fellow reliever Hunter Bigge in his place. On Wednesday, Major League Baseball suspended Uceta and fined him an undisclosed amount. Rays manager Kevin Cash was suspended for one game and also issued an undisclosed fine.
“I don’t want to be a loser and come up behind him,” Harper told reporters. “If he’s going to turn around, then all right, let’s go. But he never turned around, so I didn’t want to … I’ll say loser. I didn’t want to be a loser. There’s another word I want to use, but I won’t. But I didn’t want to be a loser and come up behind him. That wouldn’t have been right.”
It should be noted that the Castellanos plunking came after Uceta had surrendered hits to four of the five batters he had faced to that point in the game. That included a home run to Trea Turner and a double to Harper in the at-bats directly preceding Castellanos. In other words, the umpires must have felt that Uceta was taking out some of his frustrations from a bad outing by intentionally striking Castellanos.
After the game, Castellanos told reporters that he had decided to take the first pitch, in large part because he suspected that Uceta might throw at him despite the two having no preexisting beef.
“We all just got a sense of what it was — he was just (ticked) off that he got hit around and his ERA shot through the roof,” Castellanos said after the game, according to the Associated Press. “You’re frustrated and you’re going to throw at somebody. … That’s like my 2-year-old throwing a fit because I took away his dessert before he was finished.”
Uceta, for those wondering, entered the night with a 0.75 ERA in 36 innings. After his rough night, it ballooned to 1.49. He denied that the pitch was intentional, instead telling reporters through an interpreter that it was “a changeup that kind of got away.”
The Phillies’ win improved their record to 87-58 on the year. Kyle Schwarber established a new single-season MLB record with his 14th leadoff home run. He later left the game after suffering left elbow discomfort. He’s considered day to day, according to what manager Rob Thomson said afterward.
The Phillies and Rays will meet once more on Wednesday for the series finale.
