By JOSEPH MARROQUIN
Staff Writer
In the second game of opening day weekend, Reds right fielder, Nicholas Castellanos, was suspended for causing a brawl on the field. Was the brawl really Nick Castellanos’ fault? Castellanos is fighting against his suspension because he believes he was not at fault.
Here’s what happened, the night before the benches cleared, Nick Castellanos hit a moonshot off of the Cardinals ace Jack Flarity. The Reds ended up losing opening day 11-6. The next day when Castellanos was up to bat again and took a 94 mph fastball to the ribs. Tension in the air rose as everyone was speculating whether the pitcher intentionally threw at him. When the umpires calmed everything down, Nick took his base and was only thinking about scoring. Later in the inning, Castellanos finds himself at third base with 2 outs. The pitcher threw a wild pitch that went behind the catcher. Castellanos breaks for home, sliding in safely beating the tag from the pitcher.
When Castellanos got up, he stood over the pitcher, flexed and said, “Let’s f****** go!” and started to walk away. The Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina saw this and pushed Castellanos from his back and then the benches started to clear. After all the pushing, only Castellanos was thrown out of the game even though he never put his hands on anyone. Now since he’s appealing the suspension, MLB is trying to throw the whole situation under the rug so people would forget how wrong they were for suspending Nick Castellanos. The next day Nick hit another home run against the Cardinals to take the series.