Pittsburgh Pirates: Jameson Taillon Gets in Twitter Feud

The Pittsburgh Pirates saw one of their injured pitchers go to social media in the defense of a teammate.  It was rather interesting to see.

Yesterday, the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds pretty handily by a score of 7-2.  The game had plenty big moments for the Bucs, with both Colin Moran and Josh Bell hitting three run home runs.  Bryan Reynolds also had another solid game going 2-4 with a run batted in and a walk.  Cole Tucker also got into the game as a pinch hitter and defensive replacement and actually had two base hits.  Kevin Newman, Elias Diaz, and Starling Marte all had two hits apiece as well.

All in all, it was a pretty good game for the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Even with the home runs and all the hits, the most talked about moment from the game came during the eighth inning.  The Bucs had right-handed pitcher Clay Holmes on the mound trying to eat up the last couple innings.  With Eugenio Suarez up at the plate, Holmes threw a fastball up and in and it hit Suarez.  The Reds third baseman had to leave the game because of the pitch.

However, Red’s manager David Bell took exception to the pitch and went out to have a discussion with the umpires.  With such a long history between the two clubs throwing at each other, and especially the incident earlier this year, Bell undoubtedly was asking for Holmes to be thrown out of the game.  Instead, the Reds manager found himself getting tossed out of the game after he was seen yelling furiously at the umpire staff.

The aftermath of this carried over on to Twitter.  Last night Pittsburgh Pirates injured starter Jameson Taillon got into a twitter exchange with former Reds pitcher Jon Moscot.  Moscot felt that the Pirates indeed were throwing at Suarez.  Moscot tweeted:

Jameson Taillon decided to stick up for his teammate in Holmes and the Pittsburgh Pirates and shot back at the former starting pitcher, calling him out.  However, Moscot got the last word in:

It is always interesting to see when professional athletes go to twitter about something controversial in a game.  However, for someone like Jameson Taillon, a rather reserved guy, to say something is completely unexpected.

With that being said, if anything it makes it all the more likely that Holmes was telling the truth about just losing control on that pitch.  Chances are if the team wanted it done on purpose, Taillon would have never responded to Moscot and just let it fizzle out.  Instead, Taillon backed up Holmes and the team which was great to see.