PITTSBURGH – Major League Baseball reduced Cincinnati Reds relief pitcher Amir Garrett’s suspension for “inciting a benches-clearing incident” from seven games to five.
Following an agreement with the Major League Baseball Players Association, MLB altered the length of the suspension without citing a specific reason for the reduction.
“We’re going to miss him for the next five days, but no use dwelling on it at this point,” Reds manager David Bell said. "We’ll try to keep him working and create a simulated game in these five days to keep him on track and have him back Sunday in Colorado.”
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Garrett’s suspension will begin with Tuesday's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Without Garrett until Sunday, the Reds will carry a 25-player roster and an eight-player bullpen.
While he’s suspended, Garrett can still be in uniform in pregame warm-ups.
“The good news is that Amir is back on track, I think it’s been three or four good outings in a row where he has his confidence back and all his pitches seem to be working,” Bell said. “He looks like he always does.”
Garrett was suspended after an interaction with Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo on May 1. Garrett struck out Rizzo, and Garrett celebrated by shouting and pounding his chest.
Cubs infielder Javier Báez hopped over the dugout railing and shouted at Garrett, and then the rest of the benches cleared.
'He's disrespecting us': Benches clear after Amir Garrett strikes out Anthony Rizzo
“We're going to exchange words, blah, blah, blah,” Garrett said last week before the suspension was announced. “Benches clear, hold me back, whatever. That was fine. I had no intentions of fighting him.
"It was a lot of pent-up aggression from my performance. It is what it is, we move forward.”
On Monday against the Pirates, Garrett pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings. In his last six games, Garrett has a 1.69 ERA and has allowed just two hits with six strikeouts.
During that stretch, Garrett lowered his ERA from 16.20 to 8.71.
“Commanding his fastball is important, he has a really good one clearly,” Bell said. “But it makes everything better when he’s able to throw that for strikes. That’s been a part of his success, and his breaking ball, which is his special pitch, has been really sharp. That’s a really good combination.”
Managing a taxi squad
Since the start of the 2020 season, every MLB team has been allowed to carry five minor leaguers on a “taxi squad” and bring them on road trips.
The Reds' current road trip is their first one since the minor league season started on May 4. As a result, the Reds only have two players on their current taxi squad: pitcher Art Warren and infielder Mike Freeman.
“It may be different depending on what part of the country we’re in or what’s going on with our team,” Bell said. “But we really do want our minor league players, particularly the players that are close to potentially joining our Major League team, we want them competing in the minor league games. They deserve that.”
Back to .500
With Monday's 14-1 win over the Pirates, the Reds are 16-16 with the team 20% through the regular season.
“I think we’ve shown spurts of great baseball,” starting pitcher Sonny Gray said. “I think we’ve shown spurts of some not-so-great baseball, but that’s just probably a lot of teams have gone through this. ... This is a trip where we need to come in and play baseball.”
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