Despite not being division rivals, the Pirates and Diamondbacks have a bit of bad blood dating back to 2014, when Andrew McCutchen and Paul Goldschmidt were at the center of a hit-by-pitch war. McCutchen suffered a rib fracture as a result of being hit.
Tuesday night in Pittsburgh, the two teams again traded hit-by-pitches. Pirates righty Arquimedes Caminero hit both Jean Segura and Nick Ahmed with pitches up around the head, which is always scary. D-Backs righty Evan Marshall responded by hitting David Freese.
After the game Arizona manager Chip Hale said he did not think Caminero intentionally hit Segura and Ahmed up high, but did say if he "can't [keep the ball down and away from the hitter's head] he has no business being up here in the major leagues."
During Tuesday's game the ROOT Sports broadcast showed a package of all the times the Pirates and D-Backs threw at each other, and during that package Pirates broadcaster Greg Brown pointed out Diamondbacks chief baseball office Tony La Russa is a big proponent of retaliatory plunkings.
La Russa did not take too kindly to that, apparently. On Wednesday he invaded the ROOT Sports booth to set things straight with Brown.
@Nathan_Hursh He did. Moments before coming back from break! Steve had to carry broadcast solo for a few minutes as I was off headsets.
— Greg Brown (@gbrowniepoints) May 26, 2016
La Russa admitted to going to the booth to talk to Brown about his comments during Tuesday's broadcast. From Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic:
La Russa acknowledged he went into a broadcast booth during Tuesday night's game after he "heard some stuff on the air" that he considered inaccurate about his history with retaliatory pitches during his managerial days.
"I never have stood for inaccuracies," La Russa said, "so I corrected the inaccuracies.
"It's about taking responsibility. If you're going to speak untruths then you're going to get challenged and you should be responsible for what you say. I am. I reacted."
I'm sure it's happened before, but I can't ever remember someone storming a booth in the middle of a game to set the record straight with a broadcaster. That's ... kinda not cool. Not too many folks could get away with that, but La Russa is apparently someone who can.
By the way, the bad blood between the Pirates and D-Backs continued Thursday. Gerrit Cole's first pitch of the game buzzed Segura up and in, though it did not hit him. Segura doubled later in the at-bat.
(h/t Deadspin)
