Phillies Manager Accuses Edwin Diaz Of Faking Injury

Philadelphia Phillies manager Rob Thomson is not happy with New York Mets closer Edwin Diaz.

The disagreement stems from an incident during Wednesday's game between the two teams at Citi Field in New York. With the game on the line in the top of the 10th inning, the Phillies were ahead 3-2 with Diaz on the mound, he disengaged from the mound for the third time in the same at bat. Under new pace-of-play rules, that should result in a balk, automatically sending the runner to second base. 

And it did; Nick Castellanos was awarded second base. 

Except, and this is where Thomson took issue, Diaz motioned to the dugout and got manager Carlos Mendoza, the pitching coach, and training staff out to the mound. A few minutes later, he left the game with a hip injury.

Because the umpires determined that Diaz had disengaged from the mound due to his injury, they reversed the balk and sent Castellanos back to first.

Thomson, understandably, was not happy. But despite his protests, the call stood. After the game, which ended in yet another dramatic Mets walk-off victory, he went off about it, essentially accusing Diaz of faking it.

NEW YORK - Edwin Diaz of the New York Mets in action against the Baltimore Orioles at Citi Field on August 19, 2024. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

Rob Thomson Goes After Mets Closer Edwin Diaz

Speaking to the assembled reporters after the game, Thomson said he was uh, skeptical of the timing of Diaz's injury.

"So my question was, he wasn't injured after the first time he stepped off or after the second time he stepped off," Thomson told reporters. "So he steps off the third time, they award him second base, then he calls the trainer out. Kind of doesn't make sense to me. That’s a play that I’ll have to remember to tell our pitchers. Step off a third time, it's a big part of the game, calls the trainer out. We’ll take you out, we'll put somebody else in."

Diaz was asked about it too, and said he felt it earlier in the at-bat, and stepped off to see if he could get his hip unlocked. 

"On the fastball I threw to Realmuto, I felt like my hip got locked up," Diaz said. "So I started walking and tried to loosen it up and when I stepped on the mound, I couldn't lift my leg a little bit to come set. So that's why I started doing the step-offs, because I was feeling uncomfortable."

Thomson has a point; this is an easy way to game the rules and beat the system, to avoid taking an automatic balk. But the Mets almost certainly wanted Diaz on the mound in the most important situation in the game. So faking an injury wouldn't necessarily help the team, unless DIaz simply forgot he'd already disengaged twice.

Still, it's fun to have a little bit of college football drama making its way to Major League Baseball.