Detroit ― It was a long day at the ballpark Thursday. Game 1 started at 1:50 p.m.; Game 2 ended at 10:32. There were rain delays before Game 1, and late in Game 2.
And, by night’s end, the Pirates had clearly reached their boiling point.
At least four fans were ejected from Comerica Park during the second game of Thursday’s doubleheader, stemming from two separate incidents with Pirates players.
The first incident came in the seventh inning, when Pirates reliever Dennis Santana got into a verbal altercation with a fan who was standing near the seats above the visitor’s dugout in left field. Santana even took a swipe at (but didn’t connect with) the fan, who appeared to be wearing a Pirates’ Roberto Clemente shirt and a Tigers hat.
Ballpark security and a Pirates bullpen coach quickly stepped in and led Santana away from the stands. The fan was ejected from the ballpark, the Tigers confirmed.
Then, in the top of the 10th inning, after a rain delay of more than an hour and as the Pirates were rallying for an 8-4 win (after losing, 9-2, in the opener), Pirates designated hitter Tommy Pham got into a screaming match with at least three Tigers fans who were sitting in the front row of the luxury seats behind home plate. Play was stopped, and umpires ordered security to boot the fans.
One fan was wearing a blue Tigers Motor City Connect jersey; another high-fived other fans walking up the stairs.
Pham was on deck at the time of the incident; earlier in the inning, he was the pinch-running ghost runner and scored on a bang-bang play at home where he was ruled safe but fans, after watching replay on the big videoboard, clearly thought he was out. (Tigers manager AJ Hinch was ejected after the call was upheld.)
During the 10th-inning incident, Pirates manager Don Kelly went out to talk to Pham, and then the umpires, but said afterward he didn’t see what happened, nor did he know exactly what happened. Pham was gesturing and yelling at fans for several seconds, pointing them out to the umpires.
“I guess fans were saying something to him, and he didn’t take kindly to it,” Kelly said. “And the security did a great job of de-escalating that situation pretty quick.”
Pham, 37, a 12-year major-league veteran, declined to talk to reporters after the game.
On the earlier incident between Santana and a fan, Kelly said late Thursday night he was “still gathering facts.”
Santana spoke to reporters, through an interpreter. He declined to share specifics of what was said between him and the fan, but he said he’s never had an incident like that with a fan in his eight years in the major leagues, with the Pirates, Yankees, Mets, Rangers and Dodgers.
“You guys know me, and I’m a calm demeanor type of person,” Santana said through an interpreter. “I never had any issues with any other teams that I play for. And I guess the guy crossed the line a few times.
“But I would not like to go into it.”
Santana, a right-hander who signed a one-year, $1.4 million contract this offseason, said that he had spoken to Kelly after the doubleheader split, which salvaged one game for the Pirates in the three-game set. And Santana told Kelly he regretted what happened ― the incident quickly went viral, with amateur video clips making the rounds on social media. But he stopped short of issuing an apology.
“They crossed the line too many times,” said Santana, 29. “It doesn’t justify my actions, but yeah, it was too much.”
Kelly, too, showed off a short fuse multiple times Thursday, especially during Game 2. He animatedly argued a base-running interference call in the bottom of the fifth inning, then got into with umpires in the visitor’s dugout when the game was halted by rain the top of the ninth inning; Kelly argued the half-inning never should’ve started, with rain clearly on the way. Still, Kelly stopped short of earning his fourth ejection since taking over as manager in early May.
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
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