PITTSBURGH – By the time an ugly loss in Pittsburgh was finally over, Cincinnati Reds rookie Sal Stewart said he still wasn’t sure why Pirates pitcher Chris Devenski threw at him in the seventh inning.
But the umpire crew chief for the game said the crew believed it knew enough to justify ejecting Devenski from the 17-7 Pirates rout on Saturday night.
“We had the situation lead up to it with (Devenski) stepping off the rubber and (Stewart) stepping out of the box,” crew chief Alan Porter, who worked first base in the game, told a pool reporter. “Still had time and stepped out. After that, (Devenski) stepped up and he fired the pitch and, we believe, threw it at him intentionally. That’s why we ejected him.”
Stewart lost his helmet getting out of the way of the first pitch of the inning, had words with catcher Henry Davis, and peace was quickly restored as home plate ump Willie Traynor intervened — before the four-man crew huddled and made the call to eject Devenski.
“I just saw that there were 17 seconds up there, so I just waited a second, called time and the next thing you know the ball was just running to my ribs,” Stewart said. “I really don’t know what happened. Literally, I have no clue.
“No one said anything. I’m glad the umpires took care of it, but I really have no idea.”
Devenski told reporters after the game that he only intended to pitch Stewart tight and had no intention of hitting him with a 15-6 lead.
Believe it or not.
“We felt he did it on purpose,” Porter said.
Reds manager Terry Francona said after the game he didn’t sense any bad blood between Stewart and Devenski or any of the rest of the Pirates.
“I think Sal said he called timeout and he didn’t like it,” Francona said. “Actually I was talking to (pitching coach Derek Johnson) about our pitching and trying to figure out what we were going to do the next inning, so I kind of missed that one. I thought the umpires did fine.”
In fact, Traynor delayed Stewart’s second-inning at-bat to walk from behind the catcher to say something to him, after which Stewart used his allowed timeout for the at-bat before seeing a pitch.
Stewart confirmed it was about the pitch-timer rules and stepping out of the box.
“He said just to call time,” Stewart said. “He said once I engage with the pitcher, just yell time if I wanted time, so I did.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Why did a Pirates pitcher throw at Sal Stewart and what did umps say?