Tempers Flare In Detroit
The Tigers may be in first place in the American League Central, but things still seemed a little tense during Thursday afternoon's game with the Angels when starter Brad Penny and catcher Victor Martinez got into a spat on the mound.
With Peter Bourjos at the plate, Martinez called for a ball out wide of the strike zone and Penny threw the a pitch inside that Bourjos smacked into left for a double, scoring the Angles' second run of the fourth inning. Martinez then went to the mound to talk to the pitcher and Penny appeared to take offense to whatever was said and started to walk away before getting angry.
Martinez started walking away, but with Penny yelling at him, he returned to the mound. The two were face-to-face, although it didn't appear that it was coming close to blows, just a strong disagreement. As Penny continued to yell at Martinez, pitching coach Jeff Jones got between the two.
Penny stayed in the game, getting Jeff Mathis on a sacrifice bunt before allowing another run to score on Erick Aybar's single to right. That's when Jim Leyland came out to get Penny. The Tigers brought in lefty Charlie Furbush to replace Penny, and he gave up an RBI single to Torii Hunter to close the book on Penny, who allowed nine hits and seven runs in 3 1/3 innings. He didn't strike out a batter and allowed a walk and a homer, watching his ERA rise to 4.89 this season. He's 7-7 coming into the game.
It should be noted, the Tigers have been hoping to upgrade their rotation at the trade deadline, and this outburst can't help but intensify those talks.
