NEWSLETTER
The Reds and Padres are gonna have some lingering beef after a scary play at the plate, a concussion, and a subsequent offer to fight it out.
It started with this collision at the plate, with gigantic dude Luke Voit sliding-ish into Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson, who wound up with a concussion:
Luke Voit laid some solid contact on Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson pic.twitter.com/JkYKwZBnu8
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) April 20, 2022
If you ask Padres fans and Reds fans about what happened there, you’re going to get different answers. To me it looked mostly like some really bad luck, with the throw taking Stephenson off to the left just in time for him to try to dart back to tag Voit, who was trying to run inside a bit to avoid that tag, but then had to come back toward the plate for his slide. That left Voit coming down almost on top of Stephenson.
Where the Reds were upset is that Voit’s hands came down into Stephenson’s head and pushed it back and down into the ground.
“Looking back at the replay, I’m not too happy about the slide,” Reds shortstop Kyle Farmer said, per Reds.com. “Not too often you see a runner slide and grab someone’s head and slam it to the ground like that. You’re usually trying to reach for the bag. Maybe that’s what he was trying to do. After looking at the replay, it looked like a wrestling move to Tyler’s head and snapped it down.”
Speaking of wrestling moves, Reds outfielder Tommy Pham, who’d played with Voit in St. Louis and was with the Padres last year, was even more vocal.
“The way his hands hit him, it was dirty as (expletive),” Pham said, per Cincinnati.com. “I don’t like it at all. 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. I’ve got a (gym) owner here who will let me use his facility. So, (expletive) ’em …. I don’t like it all. They can say what they want. Everybody on that side, they know I get down. I know a place here. I know an owner who will let me use his gym if we need to settle anything. … That play was dirty.”
Well all right then! Voit is listed at 6’3″ and 255 lbs, while Pham comes in at 6’1″ and 223 lbs, but, as he said, he knows Muay Thai. So who knows how that would play out. Make it Pay Per View!
For his part, Voit says he was just trying to avoid the tag, and he hopes Stephenson is OK. The catcher was already put into the concussion protocol, so he’s going to miss time. The Reds and Padres conclude their series this afternoon, so we’ll see how that goes.
