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Arizona Diamondbacks star second baseman Ketel Marte was in tears during a pitching change in the seventh inning of the team’s 4-1 win over the Chicago White Sox at Rate Field on Tuesday.
Marte, 31, was left in tears after a fan yelled derogatory comments about his late mother. Marte’s mother, Elpidia Valdez, died in a car crash in the Dominican Republic in 2017. Diamondbacks’ manager Torey Lovullo consoled the tearful Marte on the mound and put his arm around him during the pitching change.
Lovullo said he heard what the fan said towards Marte, and a Diamondbacks’ spokesperson told the Arizona Republic that Lovullo and bench coach Jeff Banis asked for the person to be removed from the game.
“It was a terrible moment, fans are nasty, fans go too far,” an emotional Lovullo said to reporters after the game. “I just reacted as a dad would when I went out to change pitchers,” Lovullo said, per the Arizona Republic. “I could see he was sobbing. It hurt.”
Lovullo added that he told Marte that he was not alone and that the heckler was “an idiot.”
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Lovullo said he loves all of his players and that he is going to protect them.
“I’ve known Ketel for nine years, and he’s had some unbelievably great moments and some hardships as well and some really rough moments in his life and I know those. At the end of the day, we’re human beings, and we have emotions and I saw him hurting, and I wanted to protect him.”
Diamondbacks shortstop Geraldo Perdomo said the fan “should be banned, for sure.”
“That can’t happen,” Perdomo said. “We can’t continue to do that … here in MLB.”
Marte declined to comment on the incident through a team official.
Marte went 2-4 in the win, with a first-inning solo home run that gave the Diamondbacks a 1-0 lead. Marte is once again having an excellent season with the Diamondbacks.
In 52 games, the two-time All-Star has a .316 batting average with 14 home runs and 31 RBI.
The Diamondbacks (41-38) play the White Sox (25-55) play the final game of their three-game series at 2:10 p.m. ET on Wednesday. The Diamondbacks are going for the series sweep, as they won the first two games of the series.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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