Garza has spat with his own catcher

Posted on June 9th, 2008 – 11:12 AM
By Joe Christensen

In case you missed it while following the Twins’ carnage in Chicago, Matt Garza had a heated exchange with Tampa Bay catcher Dioner Navarro and then a shoving match in the dugout during Sunday’s loss at Texas.

Rays manager Joe Maddon offered very few details, calling it an in-house matter. From the St. Petersburg Times:

As if on cue, Garza, 24, then walked into Maddon’s office. He spent about 15 minutes there with the door closed then, looking as if it had been emotional, spent 57 seconds talking to reporters insisting there wasn’t anything to talk about — though apparently something to fix.

What happened with Navarro?

“Nothing really, just keep it in-house and fix it. That’s about it,” Garza said. “Heat of passion, probably. We’re both competitors. Whatever happened will stay here, and we’re going to fix it. We definitely can fix it. This is a great bunch of guys, and everybody’s on each other’s side, and we’re going to fix it. It’s a big step, and we’re going to fix it.”

To my knowledge, Garza didn’t have an incident this heated with a catcher in the Twins’ organization. Last spring, he had a public dispute with the organization over his pitch selection — the team’s insistence that he use more off-speed pitches and his desire to stick with his bread-and-butter fastball.

The highlights showed Garza shaking off Navarro several times before grooving a fastball that No. 9 hitter German Duran drilled for a two-run homer. A little later, Navarro went to the mound and barked at Garza, with his mask right in the pitcher’s face.

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