Arizona Diamondbacks' Torey Lovullo on ejection vs. Kansas City Royals: 'You got it wrong'

Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo was ejected from his team's 10-4 loss against the Kansas City Royals on Monday night after arguing with umpires after Gabriel Moreno was hit by a pitch from Royals reliever John Schreiber in the seventh inning.

The Royals' Bobby Witt Jr. was hit by a pitch in the sixth inning from Diamondbacks reliever Humberto Castellanos.

The umpires issued a warning to both teams after Moreno was hit, and before another pitch could be thrown, Lovullo invited Royals catcher Salvador Perez to join his conversation with home plate umpire Jordan Baker. Shortly thereafter, Lovullo was tossed after saying something to Baker.

After the game, the Arizona manager shared what he said to Baker and expressed disappointment with how the situation was handled.

"I got ejected by Jordan Baker (home plate umpire)," Lovullo said in his postgame comments. "I never said one thing to Salvador Perez, I love Salvador Perez, I think he's been an unbelievable major league player. I am a huge fan of his. I just wanted him to hear what I was going to say to Jordan, and what I said was: 'If you think in your right mind that I was going to try to ask my team to hit the future of Major League Baseball (Witt Jr.), one of the best players in Major League Baseball, you’re crazy. You lost control of this situation, and you got it wrong.'

"That's exactly what I said to Jordan Baker, and I wanted Salvador to hear that. I wanted him to take it back to their dugout to make sure that he understands that that’s how I felt about the situation and that's what I felt about Bobby Witt Jr.

"He's an unbelievable player and I would never, ever endorse hitting another player. I would never, ever do that. So, if they felt like there was intent, they should have whacked Castellanos right on the spot. I would have been fine with that. There certainly looked like there was intent from their end. I felt like their pitcher should have gotten ejected on the spot, as well.”

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Torey Lovullo on umpires: 'I didn't get a satisfactory explanation'

Lovullo wasn't done explaining his side of the story and his disappointment in how the umpires handled the situation.

"I could go back to 1985 and play that type of baseball," he said, "but Major League Baseball has asked me to transition into a more modern thinking manager with eliminating intent and the bean-ball wars, and I like that rule. I'm going to follow that rule and I don't think that was followed very well today.

“One of the umpires had said to me that if it was your player, you would have done the same thing. Does that mean every time Ketel Marte gets hit by a pitch, we need to hit somebody back? We don’t believe in that here. We don’t do that type of stuff here. So I didn’t get a satisfactory explanation.”

Witt Jr. was 3-for-3 and just a single short of hitting for the cycle before he got hit.

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Royals manager Matt Quatraro: 'We're not trying to hit somebody'

Royals manager Matt Quatraro offered his thoughts on the incident after the game.

"The unfortunate part for me is just that it is hard to see another team talking to your players," he told reporters. "That is what is the most frustrating thing, I think that's why it got out of hand … Schreiber throws a ton of sinkers, sliders away, sinkers in. We're not trying to hit somebody, we're trying to finish that game. Guys haven't pitched in a week."

We'll see if the bad blood continues between these teams.

Game 2 of the series in Kansas City is scheduled for 5 p.m. MST Tuesday.

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Reach Jeremy Cluff at jeremy.cluff@arizonarepublic.com . Follow him on X, formerly Twitter @Jeremy_Cluff.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Diamondbacks' Torey Lovullo on ejection vs. Kansas City Royals: 'You got it wrong'