Wednesday’s matchup between the Boston Red Sox and the Philadelphia Phillies featured a contentious moment between Phillies right fielder Nick Castellanos and home plate umpire Derek Thomas which was captured on a hot mic.
Castellanos led off the top of the seventh inning at the plate for the Phillies. But before his at-bat ever got going, Castellanos was issued an automatic strike after being called for a pitch timer violation.
He immediately took issue with the call, ironically taking even more time to take a step back and have a conversation with Thomas about the call.
Much of the conversation couldn’t be heard on the NBC Sports Philadelphia broadcast of the game. But just before Castellanos stepped back into the batter’s box, Castellanos could be heard dropping an F-bomb at Thomas when asking him to “speak up” about potentially getting into the batter’s box quicker.
“Out of respect for somebody who’s been in the league over 10 years, you gotta ******* speak up brother,” said the two-time All-Star.
https://twitter.com/KentMurphy/status/1801088775772082487
Quite frankly, it’s shocking that we didn’t see Castellanos get ejected for this interaction alone. Especially considering all of the absurd ejections we have seen already this season for far less severe actions.
Regardless, the at-bat carried on and ultimately the automatic first strike didn’t come back to bite Castellanos. He would draw a six-pitch walk and later be driven in on an RBI double from Bryson Stott.
