The St. Louis Cardinals' Yadier Molina had to be restrained Sunday after Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo gestured at the catcher while he was arguing a called third strike against outfielder A.J. Pollock.
Molina was restrained initially by plate umpire Tim Timmons and then by manager Mike Matheny after both benches cleared during the incident, which occurred in the top of the second inning.
"(Lovullo) called me a m-----f----- twice," Molina said after the game, which the Diamondbacks won 4-1, according to KPNX-TV. "If you're going to call somebody that, you better be ready to fight."
Molina said he hopes Major League Baseball will consider fining Lovullo for his comments.
"You can't talk to a player like that. Or an umpire. You've got to be professional," he said, according to MLB.com.
Lovullo was ejected for leaving the dugout to argue balls and strikes. Timmons, in comments to a pool reporter, called Molina's contact with him "incidental" in explaining why the catcher wasn't ejected.
Lovullo acknowledged after the game that he "used a poor choice of words" but said he had "the utmost respect" for Molina.
"The first thing I want to say is I have the utmost respect for Yadier Molina. He's one of the best catchers the game's ever seen," he said.
"I just was going out there to talk about something with the umpire and was referencing something and used a poor choice of words and he took offense to it. I wish I could take back what I said but it really wasn't really directed at him. It was more a term of me saying I respect him on that level that he's getting certain things because he's that good," he said.
He acknowledged that he "was frustrated over what I was watching" and "probably took things a little too far."
The victory was Lovullo's 100th as the Diamondbacks' manager.
