Ausmus Furious Over Innocent Question Regarding Defensive Substitution

By: Will Burchfield
@burchie_kid

Tigers manager Brad Ausmus snapped in his post-game press conference on Sunday when asked if he considered replacing right fielder Nicholas Castellanos in the ninth inning to protect Matthew Boyd's no-hitter.

Boyd lost his chance at history when Tim Anderson socked a two-out line drive that sailed over Castellanos' head. Castellanos only began playing right field this month.

"The guy threw a no-hitter through 8 and 2/3 and your first question is, 'Why didn't I defend for Nick?' This is asinine. Stop with the negative (questions). The guy had a great day. No one catches that ball. It's a bad question. I'm not even going to go there. Nobody catches that ball," Ausmus said.

True as that may be, Ausmus had speedy outfielder Alex Presley on the bench. Did he even consider a defensive substitution for Castellanos?

"No," Ausmus said.

Why not?

"Because Nick's been out there all day," he replied. "Should I have taken him out earlier? It's a dumb question."

When Castellanos was still the Tigers' third baseman, Ausmus often replaced him with the defensively-sound Andrew Romine when the team was holding a slim lead in the ninth inning.

"To win a game," the manager explained. "We had a 12-run lead (today), I'm not defending for Nick there. It's a dumb question, it's a bad question. It just shows you the negativity that sometimes comes into this room after games. You immediately look to blame or point a finger at somebody because it didn't work out the way you want it to work out."

When another reporter said he would have asked the question had no one else, Ausmus reiterated, "Well, it's a dumb question."

"You know why it's a bad question?" he went on. "Two reasons. One, nobody catches the ball. And two, if the ball isn't hit there, nobody asks it."

The question was asked after the television cameras had left Ausmus' office, so it wasn't actually the first question he faced. But he said he knew it was coming, and he was certainly prepared to fire back.

"What's pathetic is, before you guys even got here I knew that was going to be the first question, which says something about the media more than anything else," Ausmus said. "We should be celebrating a guy's outing."

Boyd, 26, would have become the first left-hander to throw a no-hitter in Tigers' history. But the scorching-hot Anderson denied him at the death.

"Off the bat I knew he hit it hard, and my first instinct was, 'Ahh, I left it up,' Boyd said. "But he struck it well, man, and he hit it to a big part of the park. Beat him on that pitch earlier in the day and he was ready for it that time."

Boyd said the 2-0 changeup was the pitch he wanted.

"It was down and away. Executed my pitch. He hit it, man," said Boyd. "Hats off to him."

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