San Francisco Giants pitcher Carlos Rodón apologizes for kicking bat at teammate
In a fit of frustration and rage, San Francisco Giants pitcher Carlos Rodón kicked a bat in his team's dugout in the bottom of the fifth inning of Tuesday's night loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Unfortunately, when Rodón kicked the bat, it careened into the right knee of Giants shortstop Thairo Estrada, who fell to the ground in obvious confusion and discomfort. Rodón rushed to his teammate's side to check on Estrada, but the damage was done and Rodón's other teammates were visibly annoyed by the action. Fortunately, Estrada wasn't badly injured and remained in the game.
Carlos Rodón furiously kicked a bat which hit Thairo Estrada in the leg 😳 pic.twitter.com/8XXIe2iJtG
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) July 27, 2022
Rodón appeared contrite and regretful after the game and called his actions "unacceptable."
"Hit my teammate, probably the nicest teammate on the team. Just a selfish action that is unacceptable and cannot happen and I take all [responsibility]," Rodón said. "I take every amount of it. That cannot happen, I just feel stupid, really stupid."
"Just angry," he added. "Angry with myself. I made a selfish action and kicked a bat that had no reason to be kicked, the bat didn't do nothing, Thairo didn't do nothing. If anything, I should be hitting myself. Stupid."
“I just feel stupid.”
Carlos Rodón expresses remorse for his "unacceptable" and "selfish" actions of kicking the bat in the dugout pic.twitter.com/tLjys0nGFJ— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) July 27, 2022
Rodón apologized to Estrada after the kick and Estrada said, via a translator, that he and Rodón are "good." Estrada didn't want to talk further about what happened, though, and second baseman Wilmer Flores added the team didn't need to address the incident further.
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Giants will work with Rodón on anger issues
Giants manager Gabe Kapler said he spoke with Rodón about making sure outbursts like that don't happen again.
"He feels terrible about it, obviously," Kapler said after the game. "You saw that right away that he felt remorse about it. He knows it's unacceptable. We talked about it after the game, it just can't happen. It doesn't matter if it's Thairo or anybody else, these are his teammates and if he's not able to maintain control in those situations, somebody could get hurt. He knows it, we're working on it. We're going to work on ways to be in control in those situations.
"That doesn't mean he won't show emotion, that's totally fine, that's part of the game and being angry about an outing or a specific event in an outing, totally fine," Kapler continued. "But when teammates and coaches are at risk, it just can't happen. We discussed it, we're going to work through it and we're going to support him through it and as I mentioned, he's fully accountable and understands that it can't happen."
Built up frustration from Rodón, Giants
Earlier in the game, Rodón was seen in the dugout visibility angry at himself for giving up a two-run home run in the second inning and slammed his glove into the dugout. Three innings later, the Giants were staring at a 5-3 deficit after Rodón gave up a three-run home run in the third inning.
That, coupled with the five earned runs Rodón allowed during his more recent start — a July 21 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers – spurred Rodón's frustrations. The Giants have also lost six consecutive games and are 8-14 in the month of July so far.
"I just held onto the frustration from the two innings prior," Rodón said. "It's not the right way to go about it, that's for sure. The last two starts have not gone great and we haven't played great and I just wanted to come out and get a win for the boys and it totally shot back and I did something even stupider."
The loss also dropped the Giants to below .500 and currently 2.5 games out of the National League Wild Card race behind the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies.
