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St. Louis Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said he warned the Milwaukee Brewers about relaying signs from the dugout during Tuesday night’s game, a situation that came to a head when Milwaukee reliever Abner Uribe gestured toward the St. Louis dugout with three WWE-style crotch chops after an inning-ending strikeout in the eighth.
Uribe, speaking through an interpreter, said after the game that he believed Marmol had been making signs that led him to believe were meant to direct Cardinals pitchers to hit Brewers batters with pitches, in particular outfielder Christian Yelich and catcher William Contreras.
Speaking with reporters before a Wednesday afternoon matchup between the teams, Marmol initially said he didn’t have a reaction to Uribe’s accusations.
“I’d rather not blow anything out of proportion,” Marmol said. “I think it already has been, to be quite honest with you.”
When pressed further about the matter, he responded.
“I’ve got no issues telling you the full story, but I just think, like anything these days, it gets blown up. This is like an everyday occurrence,” Marmol said. “We felt like [the Brewers] were being pretty demonstrative about relaying signs from the dugout.”
Marmol said that’s when he mouthed and gestured to the Brewers’ dugout.
“I looked over, and I said, ‘Hey, you gotta do it, be smart, you’re gonna get somebody hurt,’” Marmol said, while pointing to his ribs. “Like, ‘What we trying to do here?’ That was it.”
Marmol said there was also an incident involving an unnamed Brewers coach before the game concerning the sign-relaying issue. That same coach and Marmol spoke after the game, according to Marmol, who said he hadn’t had any discussions with Brewers manager Pat Murphy, who condemned Uribe’s antics, calling it “unacceptable.”
When asked if the matter was settled, Marmol said: “I have no reason to think it’s not. Usually, you just don’t get that type of demonstrative reaction that spurs further questions. That’s just the reality of it. But we have those types of interaction daily across the league.”
Yelich, speaking in the Brewers’ clubhouse on Wednesday, described Uribe’s gesture as “a little bit over the top.”
“Obviously, I don’t think the strikeout celebration is something we need to be doing,” Yelich said. “He’s a guy that always has his teammates’ backs. I appreciate where he was coming from on it, but I think there’s a different way to handle that situation, and he knows that.”
Yelich also said there has been “some stuff going on during the series that I don’t really know why it was going on,” but declined to elaborate.
Yelich said the Brewers didn’t want the matter to distract from their performance on the field. Milwaukee has taken the first two games of the series.
“We’ve all addressed it, and we’ll move on and have it not become a big distraction,” he said.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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