June 29: As relayed by Alex Stumpf of MLB.com, Santana’s suspension has been reduced to three games following the appeal and he’s expected to begin serving it today.
June 20: Major League Baseball has imposed a four-game suspension on Pirates reliever Dennis Santana for “aggressive conduct toward a fan” during the second game of yesterday’s doubleheader in Detroit. Santana, who was also fined an undisclosed amount, elected to appeal. He remains on the roster pending the result of that process.
Santana was in the bullpen last night when he got into a spat with a heckler in the first row. He jumped and took a swipe at the fan, though he didn’t appear to make contact (social media video). The fan was removed by Comerica Park security. Santana was not ejected and was called upon in the ninth inning. He recorded one out before the game went into a rain delay that led the Pirates to remove him rather than risk warming him back up.
After the game, Santana told the Pittsburgh beat via an interpreter that the fan had “crossed a line.” He declined to provide any more specifics (link via Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Santana conceded that did not “justify (his) actions” and said he’d already expressed regret to manager Don Kelly. “You guys know me and I’m a calm demeanor type of person,” he told reporters. “I’ve never had any issues with any of the teams that I’ve played for and I guess the guy crossed the line a few times. I would not like to go into it.”
A waiver claim from the Yankees last June, Santana has been quietly excellent over a full calendar year since landing in Pittsburgh. He owns a 1.72 ERA with five saves and nine holds through 32 appearances this season. Santana has a year and a half of remaining arbitration control and should be a solid trade chip as the Pirates approach deadline season as clear sellers.
Detroit, Philly have very vocal fans for sure!
Philly has been a toilet for over a century for mlb.
Gen z or 1 or 17 wont understand.
Cespool of garbage
Calling Philly a cesspool of garbage when your name indicates one of the filthiest cities in the world is laughable at best
Philly fans are a cesspool of garbage, meanwhile Philly is known Xylazine.
Cry harder lady
I would not even indulge a person who paints Philly fans with that brush but is a self proclaimed Mets fan. Those fans aren’t altar servers and I’ve been to plenty of games in Philly where Mets fans display the sad parts of humanity. Every team has rotten apples. Some more than others in bigger cities but to condemn an entire fan base as a cesspool is stupid. I guess I’m part of that cesspool then and in my opinion he as a Mets fan is a whining, loudmouth strapper part of a long line of those dudes rooting for NY’s second rate team behind the Yankees. Dude probably goes to the game with a glove.
What’s gen 1 and gen 17? Also, cesspool* of garbage is kind of redundant, like saying a septic tank full of excrement.
Don’t indulge him. He’s pretty stupid.
Not gonna lie; at first I read “septic tank full of excitement” haha
In fairness a septic tank could be empty
Whether you see the septic tank as half full or half empty tells a lot about a person.
Sad life for you I guess.
Pete Rose said they would boo their own parents in Philly.
Because effort and hard work are expected. Don’t do it and find out with a boo. If an athlete is sensitive toward a boo, he should not be an athlete. The world needs piano players and waiters. Mets fans don’t get that. They never boo, lol. And the character of all of their athletes have always been stellar.
I get the hate for dudes comment but Mets fans don’t boo?? Seriously?? Don’t run it out at Citi Field or Yankee stadium and watch how quickly we boo. We have had our Vince Coleman’s but so does every team. I can’t believe your saying New Yorker’s don’t boo.
I’m sarcastically saying they do boo and boo loudly. I know you agree. The other Mets fan is delusional if he thinks Mets fans don’t boo.
So what about the fans?
I know they got kicked out of the game. But hopefully they get a ban from all stadiums as well.
I think there’s plenty of conduct where a fan deserves to be kicked out of the game, but not banned for life.
U hope they get banned for something you have literally zero indication of what it was they said? Dog ur weird af.
How do we know that Santana was not justified in what he did?
so slapping a fan is justified?
It could very well be.
Today all the stadiums have cameras and I’m sure the bullpen has both video and audio for security purposes. Ball park security across the league is really advanced in the MLB and they don’t play around. Each team is a huge investment, liability, revenue stream and image maker or breaker so things are watched for everyone’s safety.
Ive heard consistently that the fan was telling him Roberto Clemente was burning in h*ll and other awful things about him.
The fans were saying “your mama” jokes to Santana.
Ask Will Smith (the actor).
To justify swinging at a fan based on words, the fan would practically have to threaten his kids and say their school address.
That said, what the fan said should impact the punishment. The suspension was not that long which tells me that everyone believe that the fan was a real jerk.
We don’t know because Santana refused to elaborate. That tells me it wasn’t a big deal or he doesn’t want more focus on the issue because he probably said/did something worse.
If it was truly bad, he would tell the press because it would show the level of horrible things players hear directed at them.
why would he do that and encourage copycats
If you bring light to unacceptable fan behavior then they can work to nip it in the bud early. The player can report it to staff and have them tossed. See something say something. Wasn’t that what we learned since 9/11?
Chances are both parties are at fault and he doesn’t want his side coming out.
He can bring unacceptable fan behavior to light to the league and the team without talking about it to the press.
The fan is in the stands. If he didn’t assault Santana in some way Santana shouldn’t have responded the way he did. That said, it was a long day, I’m sure certain fans were drunk and having some not so pleasant things to say.
“How do we know that Santana was not justified in what he did”
Because there are clear laws in every state that dictate when you can physically assault someone in response to an action, and clear rules in MLB dictating player conduct. Neither of those allow for what he tried to do to the fan. He should be suspended for the rest of the season, honestly.
Also*, there was a cop standing 3 feet from him, and if it was something that egregious (it’s on video, it wasn’t a legally justifiable response) then Could have and *should have* simply told the cop who was standing right there.
I agree 100%. When this happened, I automatically assumed a min 25 game ban. 4 games for swinging on a fan who posed no physical threat and did not enter the field of play is a joke.
The cop was standing there because Santana called him over to point out the fan. Santana, himself, stated his actions were wrong, immediately after it occurred. Santana did not assault the fan, and there is no such thing legally as attempted assault.
Rumor has Santana as someone the Tigers are interested in acquiring.
Yes, there are inchoate crimes in nearly every state. They are the attempt to commit a crime. Assault (in some states battery) is a crime. 25 years in law…..
If words hurt you that much. You shouldn’t choose a career where you are surrounded by thousands of people.
MLB is getting soft.
Getting?
Pirates would be stupid to trade him, isn’t paid much and is not becoming a free agent. Bednar’s larger cost makes him the prime trade candidate.
sell high for a team like Pittsburgh to maximize return
too bad Cruz couldn’t get suspended
5 strikeouts in his last 7 plate appearances and committed a costly error that allowed Texas to score a run
Regarding Santana, I saw the video. Apparently he allowed a fan’s mouth to test his patience but is it worth 4 games?
Should be two games maximum.
He’s on the pirates. Let’s be real. It’s not like those 4 games are going to impact their playoff chances.
being real is still playing to the best of your abilities and trying to win, no matter what position your team is in the standings
Heard a Pirate got into an “altercation” with a fan. Saw the video.
He missed the guy by 5 feet. It was feeble.
Found the Ron Artest brawl on Youtube. THAT was an “altercation”.
Yes the pirates pitcher covered in tattoos is the gentlest of souls. Most of us would be fired doing the same thing at our jobs…
You don’t know anything at all about Dennis Santana’s soul.
The typical workplace doesn’t have a history of drunk crazies jumping walls to attack the workers.
It’s 2025 tattoos don’t mean anything lol
Been to the DMV? It’s filled with people who’d secretly love to “jump the wall and attack the workers.”.
Boy..way to profile someone….must be bad man has tattoos.
If having tattoos was a crime, half of America would be in jail
Latest estimates from a Pew Research poll was 32% of those of us in the US have a tattoo in 2023. 38% of women have one or more. 27% of men. The average size is under 3″ of the tattoo’s largest dimension.
The higher your education level, the less likely you are to have a tattoo. Just 24% of people with a bachelor’s degree have a tattoo and only 21% of people with a post-graduate degree (Masters/Doctoral).
The higher your income level, the less likely you are to have a tattoo. 43% of lower-income adults have a tattoo, compared with 31% of those in middle-income households and 21% of those in upper-income households.
If you identify as LGBTQ you are most likely to have a tattoo, with 51% having at least one.
For the vast majority of people, 64% (men)-68% (women), seeing someone with a tattoo doesn’t change the way they think of them in any way.
The only tattoos that seem to nearly universally change the way people think of you in a negative way are facial tattoos (81%) and racially-charged [swastika, etc…] tattoos (93%).
Guys with tramp stamps can make you think of them in a negative way also.
This!
I wouldn’t exactly say a women with a tramp stamp gives a positive narrative. That’s why its called a “Tramp” stamp.
What do tattoos have to do with anything? You sound like a jack*ss.
Sonny Corleone threw a better punch.
If every Pirate player were hitting exactly like Oneil Cruz – even with the strikeouts – the Pirates would have the fourth highest OPS in MLB and would be very close to being in first place in their division.
To moan about his strikeouts shows a serious misunderstanding of run creation.
Richard- He doesn’t hustle.
That error today was his normal casual self.
I have never seen someone do that who did not automatically turn around and chase the ball down.
He looked like a casual observing fan on a baseball field.
Any good manager would have pulled him on the spot.
And he does seem to guess on pitches which is fine early in the count.
But not with two strikes.
These are all statements that even a casual baseball fan would know.
Cruz has a habit of keeping his bat on his shoulder for every pitch thrown to him and thus striking out looking
Sadly, 0 for 7 past two games. No denying the potential, but the individual stats and the team offensive performance don’t really support the support for him.
Cruz is batting .210
I am glad not every player is hitting like him
I guess Jim Rice would be suspended for a month for getting his hat back. Yeesh.
Maybe the ignorant and obnoxious fans who heckle athletes enough to evoke responses like this should be banned from attending games for some period of time in addition to the punishments the athletes get (deserving or not). The ugly American story we hear about too often: living in America with all of the benefits leads some idiots to forget real world problems that so many others face on a daily basis. This fan seemed to be so entitled to behave this way with no threat of consequence: what does that say about our woke American society?
I’m sure this fan is now banned .
Nope. It was Detroit. The Tigers probably gave him season tickets for his actions.
Right….turd
Players need to have thicker skin….. they’re getting paid to deal with it.
“Players should expected to be verbally harassed, demeaned, and insulted by fans at their job.”
Because…reasons? Why is this an acceptable attitude to have toward athletes? They play a game and are paid extremely well, so they should have to put up with hateful, idiotic, drunken foolishness? Is that really the rationale?
If your response is to me, that’s not at all what I implied. I said they need to have thicker skin and then handle it appropriately. There’s an obvious way to handle this and it’s NOT to physically attack the fan. There was a cop standing right next to him, there are security, there are team personnel…. Etc.
In no way should an acceptable response to a heckler be to physically assault him. On that topic, cops and teachers are expected to deal with it, at a much lower pay, so why not profession athletes?
YC, there was absolutely a better way to handle it. That player, his manager, and the umpires working the game have the right to ask that any fan be removed from the stadium.
In any other profession other than professional sports Santana would have lost his job for his actions.
Do you know how the term “ woke” originated?
From the prejudices against the black population in the 1940’s
I know that not because I was born in Pittsburgh, but because I take the efforts to learn
At least someone is trying to make sense of it. Everytime I return to the U.S., it’s like I landed on a Planet of the Apes remake.
The term “woke,” meaning aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues, particularly those of racial and social justice.
Its now mostly used by racists and the political right wing trying to say that you being aware of very real and systemic racial prejudice is bad.
There USED TO BE a thing called, “provocation”.
A threat or insult could be answered with a physical reaction. You PROVOKED the other person. You couldn’t do or say what ever you wanted = you were required by law to repect.the other persons’ rights to not be treated unpleasantly.
There were NO BUMPERSTICKERS OR T-SHIRTS with swear words or $uck….someone could get out of their car and kick your butt.
Quite frankly, I WISH WE GO BACK TO THOSE DAYS.
MY MOTHER, NOR ANYBODY ELSE DOES NOT NEEDS TO READ THAT STUFF.
What year is this that you’re referring to?
1910.
Go to Los Angeles..peaceful till the national guard and marines came. Masked goons..running amuck. Those days are here now…just that it’s against Americans
Yes, the glory days when angry (P word) man babies could punch anyone who used “unpleasant” words instead of growing the F up.
Does your mother still change your diaper?
I agree with you…I recently posted something on a certain social platform. The post was in reference to trump. It was negative but it was clean. No name calling. Now somehow they got my email and I git 8 threatening emails that were vile and vulgar…one suggested I shout get off my freeloading butt and get a job..now I’ve been retired for 6 years SS…this is how they think..everyone is lazy
The glory days before social media and key board warriors. There was a time when parents taught manners. It helped make for a kinder society.
Dennis Santana is one of 5 players on the entire Pirates roster doing well.
Players can’t engage with fans. However, some fans and dirt wad lawyers see it as a potential payday and push boundaries.
“A neck tattoo is a middle finger to society, but a face tattoo is a middle finger to God”
Says who?
Some alien told him.
Lol
I didn’t know aliens talked to themselves
Probably RFK Jr told him, according to his name
RFK JR…the guy who takes his grandkids and goes swimming in a cesspool. And he gives medical advice, then says people shouldn’t listen to him…worm is still eating
I’ll take a borderline crazy person in charge if it means we can get rid of petroleum based dye and seed oils in our food. That stuff is 100% poison.
While being against vaccines is a sign of pure ignorance
Who are you quoting?
He’s quoting Roger Smith..the alien from American Dad
I’m quoting the person who has posted here named “ vaccines are poison “
TheMan, I was asking OP about the quote. I was replying to you about the RFK thing. Sorry for confusion.
I’m not against selling beer at sporting events. But face it some people can’t handle it. The fan who had the confrontation with Santana might have had a few too many. The kid who fell out of the stands at PNC was drinking. He was 20. His buddy was 21 and supplied him. Look at the nutjobs at football games. 20 degree weather and they are shirtless and drunk.
Beer was never sold at old Forbes field. But they allowed you to bring your own booze. This was banned in 1959.
So people should enjoy the game,the sunshine and at least remember the final score…not how they threw up on the person in front of them.
There is a reason that they didn’t sell alcohol in the Pavilion outfield bleachers at Dodger’s games for a generation.
I am against the Buc hitters of swinging at everything thrown in their direction instead of being more selective
Gonzalez swings at everything regardless of where the pitch is located
Hayes swings at pitches at the top of the strike zone and doesn’t have the power to hit safely and ends up popping out
Horowitz apparently doesn’t have the power everyone said he has
Just get traded to Tigers. Problem(s) solved.
MLB should be sued by the players union for “Dangerous working conditions”. Fans so close, able to “abuse” players with no place to escape the environment. Booing is one thing, but throwing things, calling them things. I have seen this. Not right and a man can take only so much. Shame on MLB and their unortodox methods of chasing MONEY.
I’m done with this absolute horror of a manager…he yanks burrows after 4 1/3 innings. 67 pitches. 6-1 lead..at least let the kid go 5 to get the win. Yea yea burrows pitched in relief the other day…just shows that Shelton/Kelly has no idea how to manage a pitching staff. He also started Ashcroft, yanked him after 3 innings. Used him last night in relief. He will destroy this young pitching staff, if he’s a loud to remain the manager
The moral of the story? Players can try to fight with fans as long as they suck at fighting and miss with their punch.
I have no objection to what Santana did.
He really should have had the guards remove the guy from the game.
But he was not thinking and was reacting to emotion.
He should not have to put up with that crap.
They had to give him time off because they gave someone else three games off recently I think for something worse.
I think that two games was plenty.There was no way that he would come close to connecting.
He did have the fan removed. Santana was the one who called the cop over, to point out the heckler, when things escalated. He was literally doing what everyone says he should have done.
The horror Moron Shelton clone did it again yanking Cabrera. He will ruin this staff
“Shelton clone”? Under Shelton, the Pirates were 12-26 (.316). They had scored 118 runs or 3.1 per game while giving up 175 runs or 4.6 per game. That was good for a run differential of -57. Under Kelly, the Pirates are 23-24 (.489). They have scored 179 runs or 3.8 per game while giving up 164 runs or 3.5 per game. That is good for a run differential of positive 15. To call Kelly a Shelton clone is to ignore the evidence.
Does Kelly deserve to be rehired this year? Don’t know. That will be determined by how well the Pirates do in the second half of the season. Personally, I believe Kelly is a significant improvement over Shelton. Is that enough? That is what the rest of the season determines.
I agree with you Skeptical.Kelly adds much more energy to the team.His lineups are actually becoming more reasonable.He has a deeper bullpen and can more easily pull pitchers.I think that they react to him better.
One could get a trained ape and do better than Shelton though.
His dealing with Cruz when he clearly did not hustle would have never happened under Shelton.
Shelton continually said that we have to do better but he never did.
I do not know whether Hague is any better but the hitters lately seem to be more aggressive.
Kelly is one game below 500.If he gets to 500 they finish 74-88 which would be a great improvement over the 51-111 rate under Shelton which would be the same rate from 2020.
At least the team has hope in almost every game.
Contrary to some belief,the managers do actually make a difference either plus or minus.
Before you pitching Kelly in the managers Hall of Fame, just wait till the season is done. Sure they are playing better. But he makes a lot of baffling mistakes. Especially with the pitching staff.
Im in the opinion that they need to hire an older established manager
Why would an established manager take a job in a small market during a rebuild? Also, they cost more. Donny Kelly is a fast mover., Think of him as a top prospect. There is an adjustment period that first year. He will get better. (Hopefully)
My new nickname for Kelly is THE THING. After the syfy classic movie of 1951. A complete walking mutant
I’m still hurting from when he attacked me. God damn
Fire Carlos Mendoza!