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Tommy Pham didn’t want to talk about it.
He declined to comment.
“Hell nah,” Pham told Will Burchfield, a reporter for WXYT-FM (97.1), in the visitor’s clubhouse. “I got people to see.”
Pham, a 12-year MLB veteran who plays for the Pittsburgh Pirates, engaged in a verbal altercation with three Detroit Tigers fans in the 10th inning Thursday, June 19, at Comerica Park. The fans were sitting in the Home Plate Club, the premium seating section behind home plate.
All three fans were ejected from the game.
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch ejected
In total, four fans — and five people — were ejected from Game 2 of Thursday’s doubleheader between the Tigers and Pirates. Aside from the fans, Tigers manager A.J. Hinch was ejected for arguing a replay review decision on a play at the plate.
“The umpires worked with security and supported the decision to eject a fan who made inappropriate comments in order to be protective of a player on the field,” an MLB spokesperson said in a statement.
The Tigers lost, 8-4, in the 10th inning.
Tommy Pham vs. Tigers fans
It was a long game, but the ejections stole the show.
Tigers catcher Jake Rogers heard the entire shouting match between Pham and the fans in the top of the 10th inning, though he didn’t share the details of the exchange.
“I’ll let Tommy describe it, if he wants to,” Rogers said.
“It was crazy,” he added. “It was kind of out of nowhere. It surprised me. I think it surprised all of us — Dexter (Kelley, home plate umpire), me and Oneil (Cruz). I heard some yelling, and I turned around, and Tommy was in it with a fan.”
Were the fans yelling at Pham — or just yelling in general?
“Just in general,” Rogers said. “I don’t know if it was towards him or what, but I think Tommy thought it was. Again, I don’t know if it was or not, but Tommy felt like something was towards him.”
Do you think the ejection of the fans was warranted?
“They threw him out, so I guess so,” Rogers said.
It seemed like it was pretty serious.
“Again, I hope we hear it from Tommy, and we can see it and hear exactly what he said,” Rogers said. “But I’ll let Tommy do that explanation.”
Pham never explained what he heard from the fans.
Earlier in the 10th, Pham — the free runner in extra innings — scored from second base sliding head-first on a single from Ke’Bryan Hayes, giving the Pirates a 5-4 lead. Right fielder Kerry Carpenter threw a laser to Rogers, who applied the tag.
The call on the field? Safe.
The Tigers signaled for a challenge.
It looked like Pham was out at the plate, but replay review upheld the call on the field — safe.
Here’s the statement from the Replay Operations Center at the MLB offices in New York: “After viewing all relevant angles, the Replay Official could not definitively determine that the fielder tagged the runner prior to the runner touching home plate. The call stands and the runner is safe.”
After the determination, Hinch shot out of the dugout to argue the replay review decision, which was not made by the umpires on the field. He was immediately ejected by second base umpire Chris Guccione, who served as the crew chief.
Hinch reflected on the situation.
“I’ve seen a couple of them, not all of them,” said Hinch, ejected for the first time in the 2025 season. “At that moment of the game, I think the first call is as important as the call to New York. I hate ‘stands.’ When you say it stands, it’s like making no call to either affirm or take it away. That brings a lot of frustration. They showed it up on the big board. I got to defend my team. The angle that they put up on the board looked like he was out. They’ll send me a note. They’ll send me a couple snapshots of how they couldn’t tell. We’ll never know how the game goes if it goes our way.”
On the play, Rogers thought he tagged Pham.
When he saw the replay, he thought the call on the field would be reversed.
“I saw it on the big board,” Rogers said. “It looked like I got it, and I think everybody else thought so, just someone in New York didn’t. I haven’t watched the video full-go to see it, but everything felt perfect. It just kind of didn’t go our way.”
Pirates Dennis Santana spars with fan
The other ejection occurred in the seventh inning, when a fan was ejected for an altercation with Pirates reliever Dennis Santana in the visitors’ bullpen.
Santana appeared to be arguing with a fan wearing a Pirates jersey and a Tigers hat. The fan was captured on video posted on social media speaking with Santana before Santana jumped up and attempted to strike the fan. A coach and bullpen catcher Raúl Hernández then extracted Santana from the situation.
Santana pitched in the ninth inning.
After the game, Santana declined to specify what was said to him, but he said the fan “crossed the line.” He also said that it didn’t “justify the actions.”
“You guys know me,” Santana said in Spanish, interpreted by a team employee. “I’m a calm demeanor type of person. I’ve never had any issues with any of the teams that I’ve played for. I guess the guy crossed the line a few times, but I would not like to go into it.”
Santana said he spoke with Pirates manager Don Kelly about the incident and expressed regret. When asked, Kelly said he didn’t have enough information to comment on the incident.
Free Press reporter Matthew Auchincloss contributed to this report.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.
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