Elias Diaz wants to move on from Anthony Rizzo's controversial slide into home plate Monday afternoon at PNC Park. On one hand, Diaz, the Pirates' backup catcher, received some peace of mind that Major League Baseball determined Rizzo's slide to be illegal. On the other hand, he said it's too late for it to make much of a difference.
Diaz feared Rizzo's slide, which forced a throwing error to allow two runs to score and knocked Diaz to the ground, could end his career. It's unclear if his teammates are ready to move on, though. After all, Sean Rodriguez told reporters after the 7-0 loss to the Cubs that the Pirates need to have "each other's backs" after such an incident.
Rizzo stepped to the plate one inning after the incident and hit a two-run single off reliever Richard Rodriguez. Diaz, while speaking about MLB's ruling Tuesday afternoon, said his teammates will always protect him; however, he made it clear he wanted some sort of response.
"My teammates will always protect me," Diaz said through team interpreter Mike Gonzalez. "That's the culture here. That's who we are. We'll protect each other and I've always felt that protection. Unfortunately, we didn't see an instant response, but it's in the past. We're going to play baseball today. We're going to move forward."
The league's ruling added fuel to the debate between the two teams. Joe Maddon told Joe Torre, MLB's Chief Baseball Officer, he "respectfully" disagreed with the ruling that Rizzo's slide was illegal. Rizzo, meanwhile, called it a successful slide since it did break up a double play.
Everyone in the home clubhouse, though, Diaz and Clint Hurdle included, maintained their opinion that Rizzo deliberately left the base path to try to make contact with Diaz.
With the bases loaded and no outs in the eighth inning Monday, the Cubs’ Chris Gimenez hit a ground ball to Sean Rodriguez, who threw home to Diaz for the force out. Diaz caught the ball, stepped forward and prepared to throw to first base. Meanwhile, Rizzo, attempting to score from third base, stepped to the left of the baseline and extended his left leg.
Rizzo made contact with Diaz’s right leg, knocking Diaz to the infield grass and leaving him writhing in pain as two runs scored. Home plate umpire Bill Welke ruled the slide to be legal, and the call stood following a replay review. Hurdle was ejected after arguing the call, and the basis of his argument was that such a slide puts catchers in harm's way.
Diaz remained in the game and was behind home plate in the ninth inning when Rizzo came to bat with runners on first and second. With no outs and the Pirates trailing 5-0, Rodriguez, a 28-year-old rookie, threw a wild pitch to allow both runners to advance. Rodriguez chose to pitch to Rizzo and allowed the two-run single.
David Freese, who was seen arguing with third base coach Joey Cora in the dugout immediately after the game, said he didn't want to speak on players needing to police themselves in such a situation.
"Oh, I don’t… that’s an I-just-work-here thing," he said, laughing. "Whether I am in high school, college, rookie in the big leagues, I have played the game the same way. I like how it’s played a certain way. Whether people agree with how I like it or not, so be it. But that call is not on my shelf."
Hurdle wants the Pirates to move on. They've lost eight of their last 10 games and have dropped to fourth place. He laughed when asked his opinion about retaliation, saying, "It’s an interesting concept because hard slides, pitching hard inside, they are part of the game. The interesting point now is the player that had the hard slide was hit 30 times two years ago, 24 times last year. You need to pitch him hard inside and, if you ding him pitching hard inside tonight, who knows where it goes? It’s just an interesting concept, and he’s really good at getting on that plate and swinging big. That’s what he does, and he does it really well. ... There’s no telling what could have happened yesterday, and we’ll just continue to play the game. The best retaliation is to beat them."
On one hand, Rizzo is preparing himself for retribution. He knows how some players could have taken exception to Diaz's slide. However, Rizzo said multiple Pirates told him they had no issue with the slide.
"When you have multiple players from their team saying it was a good, clean, hard slide, you don’t really worry about it too much," Rizzo said. "I can probably sit here and make a promise to everyone I will be hit by the Pittsburgh Pirates again in my career at some point. They’ve probably hit me the most in my career up to this point. If I get hit tonight, I get hit tomorrow, if I get hit when we play them again, it happens. Hopefully it’s in the right spot. Hopefully the players pretty much know if you’re going to hit somebody on purpose you have to go a little bit lower. It is what it is."