Tommy Pham and the Cincinnati Reds are not happy with San Diego Padres slugger Luke Voit right now.
Voit was the center of controversy Tuesday night when he injured Cincinnati catcher Tyler Stephenson with a violent slide on a play at the plate.
While Voit didn’t necessarily run over Stephenson — such plays have been outlawed for years now — he did come in pretty high and collided with the catcher. Stephenson suffered a concussion on the play.
(You can watch the play by clicking here.)
The play itself wasn’t that bad, and Reds manager David Bell didn’t seem to take much exception to it. What irked the Reds, it seems, is how Voit appeared to pull Stephenson’s head down as he slid into home.
“Looking back at the replay, I’m not too happy about the slide … there were some things after you watch the replay that happened that we’re gonna take a second look and see and go from there,” Reds shortstop Kyle Farmer told reporters after the game. “… Not too often you see a runner slide and grab someone’s head and slam it to the ground like that. … After looking at the replay, it was like a wrestling move to Tyler’s head and snapped it down.”
No one was more upset than Reds outfielder Tommy Pham, who happened to start the relay.
“It was dirty as f—,” Pham told reporters after the game, per The Athletic.
Pham was so fired up, in fact, he’s ready to throw hands with the 6-foot-3, 225-pound Voit, who is built like a brick you-know-what.
“I don’t like it. At all,” Pham emphatically said. “The way his hands hit him in the face — it was dirty. If Luke wants to settle it, I get down really well. Anything — muay thai, whatever. Like I said I’ve got an owner here who will let me use his boxing facility.
“So, (expletive) ’em.”
The Reds actually challenged the play, but the umpires saw no problem with it, at least not by the letter of the law.
“The ball takes him right into Luke,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said, per The Associated Press. “There’s nowhere to go, and I think Luke was just trying to protect himself putting his hands up. I think they got it right.”
The play happened in the first inning, so the Reds technically could have retaliated, if they wanted, with Voit getting three more plate appearances, but cooler heads prevailed. Whether peacetime continues when the series resumes Wednesday afternoon will be quite interesting to watch.
