June 12, 2004: Salomón Torres brushback ejection turning point in Oakland’s 12-11 win over Pirates

Retired prematurely at age 25, Salomón Torres reemerged in his 30s as one of baseball’s most durable relief pitchers, including 84 appearances for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2004. On June 12 of that season at Network Associates Coliseum, the Pirates entrusted him with a four-run eighth-inning lead against the Oakland A’s. Torres, however, was ejected after throwing two pitches behind Oakland’s Damian Miller in the alleged continuation of a brushback exchange between the interleague foes, and the A’s rallied against relievers José Mesa and Mark Corey for a wild 12-11 win.

When Torres reached the majors in August 1993, with his San Francisco Giants vying with the Atlanta Braves for the National League West Division title, teammates and Bay Area press hailed the 21-year-old Dominican as a phenom.1 But after several promising starts, Torres failed to make it through four innings in three of his final four outings.2 The Los Angeles Dodgers knocked him out in the fourth inning of the Giants’ do-or-die season finale, routing San Francisco, 12-1.3 The 103-win Giants fell one game short of the Braves, and Torres’ final-Sunday defeat loomed as a career-defining moment.4

He faded in San Francisco, then drifted to the Seattle Mariners in a 1995 trade and to the Montreal Expos in a 1997 waiver transaction.5 In August 1997, after being designated for assignment, Torres retired with an 11-25 career record and a 5.71 ERA.6

Torres remained in baseball as an Expos pitching instructor in the Dominican Republic.7 Seeking to support his family with a child coming, he began pitching again in Korea and the Dominican in 2001.8 He caught the attention of the Pirates, who signed him to a minor-league contract for 2002.9

More than five years after his last big-league appearance, Torres returned to the majors in September 2002 and outdueled Hall of Fame-bound Tom Glavine with eight shutout innings in his first game back.10 By 2004, the 32-year-old Torres was Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon’s highest-volume bullpen option, mostly handling eighth-inning leads ahead of veteran closer Mesa. Entering Pittsburgh’s mid-June series in Oakland, Torres had a 3.03 ERA in 30 appearances.

The Pirates, without a winning season since 1992, had lost five in a row and 10 of 11 to drop to 24-32 when they arrived in Oakland on June 11. Five straight wins, and eight of their last nine, had pushed the A’s into first place in the American League West Division at 34-24. In a three-game sweep of the Cincinnati Reds, Oakland had bludgeoned out 40 runs on 51 hits with 7 home runs.11

Both teams’ streaks continued in the series opener, a 6-1 A’s win. The starting pitchers, Oakland’s Tim Hudson and Pittsburgh’s Kris Benson, combined for five hit batsmen. Home-plate umpire Jim Joyce warned both teams when Hudson and Benson hit batters in the second inning, but nobody was ejected, even after Hudson hit two Pirates in the sixth and Benson hit AL Rookie of the Year-bound shortstop Bobby Crosby in the bottom of the inning.12

Pirates right-hander Ryan Vogelsong took the mound on Saturday afternoon with a 7.53 ERA in 11 starts.13 Leadoff hitter Eric Byrnes drove his third pitch of the game over the left-field fence for his sixth home run of the season. Oakland scored again in the second on Crosby’s RBI double.

The Pirates drew even against lefty Mark Redman in the third. Chris Stynes and José Castillo opened in the inning with singles, and Jason Kendall’s single scored Stynes.14 The rally seemed to stall when Jack Wilson popped into a double play while attempting to sacrifice, but Jason Bay, on his way to winning NL Rookie of the Year honors, singled home Castillo to make it a 2-2 game.

The tie held only until Vogelsong’s first pitch of the bottom of the third. Byrnes hit it down the left-field line and inside the foul pole for his second homer in two at-bats.15 One out later, Mark Kotsay doubled and Jermaine Dye walked.16 Erubiel Durazo’s two-out single drove in Kotsay for a 4-2 A’s lead.

Redman retired the side on three groundballs in the fourth. The fifth seemed likewise barren for Pittsburgh when Kendall and Jack Wilson followed Castillo’s leadoff single with strikeouts. But Castillo moved to second on Redman’s wild pitch, and Bay doubled him home. Craig Wilson’s walk and Rob Mackowiak’s single loaded the bases for right fielder Rubén Mateo.17

The Pirates had signed Mateo, a former top prospect with the Texas Rangers, during the 2003-04 offseason. Called up from Triple A in mid-May, the 26-year-old Dominican had batted just 25 times in three weeks with Pittsburgh.18

He drove Redman’s 1-and-1 pitch over the 362-foot sign in left-center for a grand slam, his second homer of the season. The five-run outburst gave the Pirates a 7-4 lead.

Oakland answered by scoring twice in its half of the fifth. Kotsay led off with a single, took second when center fielder Mackowiak misplayed the ball for an error, and scored on Dye’s double. After lefty Mike González replaced Vogelsong, groundouts by Scott Hatteberg and Durazo advanced Dye around the bases to make it 7-6.

A’s manager Ken Macha – a Pittsburgh native who began his major-league playing career with the Pirates in 1974 – turned to his bullpen, which yielded three straight one-run innings. Jack Wilson’s two-out single off submariner Chad Bradford scored Stynes in the sixth. Stynes drove in Mateo with a two-out seventh-inning single against Justin Duchscherer.

In the eighth, Duchscherer’s slow-arching 2-and-2 curveball hit Kendall in the face.19 Jack Wilson’s single moved Kendall to second, and a sacrifice and a groundout brought him home. The Pirates took a 10-6 lead to the bottom of the eighth.

McClendon’s midgame bullpen management seemed to bridge the gap to Torres and Mesa smartly. Veteran righty Brian Meadows recorded five outs and rookie lefty Mike Johnston tallied another. With two A’s on, two outs, and Crosby up in the seventh, McClendon took out Johnston and summoned Torres, who induced a popup for the third out.

Torres remained on the mound when Miller, whose seventh-inning RBI single put Oakland ahead to stay on Friday, led off the A’s eighth. The first pitch sailed belt-high past Miller’s back.

Was it an act of aggression, piled on Kendall’s accidental top-of-the-inning hit batsman, another tight pitch to Jack Wilson,20 and Friday’s tit-for-tat between Hudson and Benson? Or was it, as Torres asserted afterward, the result of several days of inactivity degrading his sinker’s effectiveness?21 Rainouts and a lack of Pirates’ leads had kept him sidelined since Monday.22

Whatever the cause of Torres’ errant delivery, home-plate umpire Kerwin Danley issued warnings to both benches.23 Torres’ next pitch mirrored its predecessor, and Danley ejected Torres and McClendon immediately.24

The Pirates brought in the 38-year-old Mesa, whose 24 appearances had netted 14 saves and a 1.11 ERA. Pitching before the ninth inning for the first time all season, Mesa struck out Miller, but the A’s then rallied.

Marco Scutaro drove a 1-and-2 pitch for a home run,25 the first against Mesa in 2004. Byrnes singled and took third on Mark McLemore’s single.26 Kotsay’s single scored Byrnes, cutting Pittsburgh’s lead to 10-8.

Dye walked on a full count, and Hatteberg’s bases-loaded fly out made it a one-run game. Durazo singled to right and Kotsay scored the tying run. On Mesa’s 43rd pitch of the game, Crosby doubled home Dye. Corey – a late-May call-up pitching for the third day in a row – replaced Mesa and retired Miller, but the A’s had surged into an 11-10 lead.

Veteran lefty Arthur Rhodes came in for the save, but Mateo drove his second pitch of the inning over the fence in left for his second homer of the game. The score was tied, 11-11. The Pirates threatened to retake the lead when Daryle Ward doubled, but Rhodes set down Stynes, Castillo, and Kendall to preserve the tie.

The A’s swiftly resolved any drama in the ninth. Scutaro doubled off Corey and took third on Byrnes’ fly ball to right. McLemore and Kotsay were intentionally walked. With the outfield pulled in, Dye drove a high pitch over Bay’s head in left, and Scutaro scored the winning run.

Of more than 370 pitches over nearly four hours of baseball, resulting in 23 runs and 34 hits, Torres’ two deliveries behind Miller’s back were singled out as the turning point.27

“He was trying to make a statement,” Miller said. “But it turned into a spark.”28

“Everyone on the bench just got more and more fired up with each hit, and it just built,” Crosby added.29

The A’s slugged three home runs – solo shots by Byrnes and Hatteberg and a grand slam by backup catcher Adam Melhuse – and beat the Pirates, 13-3, in the series finale.30 Oakland had a four-game lead in the AL West on September 4, but 17 losses in their next 26 knocked the A’s to a second-place finish, one game behind the Anaheim Angels. Pittsburgh came in fifth in the six-team NL Central Division, the franchise’s 12th consecutive losing season.31

Torres pitched for the Pirates through 2007 and finished his career with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2008. His 366 appearances from 2004 through 2008 were the most of any big-league pitcher. As of 2024, Torres’ 94 games pitched in 2006 are exceeded in major-league history only by Mike Marshall’s 106 appearances for the Dodgers in 1974.32

The only ejection of his 12-season career was in Oakland on June 12, 2004.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play. The author also reviewed game coverage in the Oakland Tribune, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and San Francisco Chronicle newspapers.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK200406120.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B06120OAK2004.htm

Photo credit: Salomón Torres, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 John Shea, “Salomon Is Torrid: Giants Rise Again Thanks to Phenom from Phoenix,” Oakland Tribune, August 30, 1993: D-1; Bud Geracie, “Torres Gives Giants Boost They Needed,” San Jose Mercury News, August 30, 1993: 1F.

2 Larry Stone, “Portugal + Giants = Loss: Archnemesis Sinks S.F. Again With a Three-Hit Shutout,” San Francisco Examiner, September 22, 1993: C-6; John Shea, “Giants Slip on Rocky Road: They Fall One Back; 4 to Play,” Oakland Tribune, September 30, 1993: D-3; Larry Stone, “103 Wins Not Enough: Giants’ Dream Year Ends Rudely in L.A.” San Francisco Examiner, October 4, 1993: D-1.

3 Stone, “103 Wins Not Enough.”

4 “Torres … earn[ed] lasting infamy for starting and losing the final game of the 1993 season at Dodger Stadium,” former Bay Area sportswriter Larry Stone observed for the Seattle Times in 2002. Larry Stone, “Torres Arms His Comeback with Wisdom of Salomon,” Seattle Times, March 3, 2003: C4.

5 John Shea, “Giants Give Torres Chance to Start Over,” Oakland Tribune, May 22, 1995: C-2; Ian MacDonald, “Torres a Happy Expo: Dominican Countrymen Provide Lots of Support,” Montreal Gazette, April 22, 1997: C4.

6 “Expos Story,” Montreal Gazette, August 2, 1997: D2.

7 Associated Press, “Torres to Start for Bucs,” Indiana (Pennsylvania) Gazette, September 3, 2002: 15.

8 John Suchon, “Reviled Torres Makes a Comeback,” Oakland Tribune, September 8, 2002: SPORTS, 5;

9 Stone, “Torres Arms His Comeback with Wisdom of Salomon.”

10 Paul Meyer, “Torres, Pirates Blank Braves: Pitcher Gets 1st Win in Majors Since 1996,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 5, 2002: D-1.

11 Andrew Baggarly, “A’s Hitters Feast on Reds: Oakland Sets Record for Runs in Three-Game Series,” Oakland Tribune, June 10, 2004: SPORTS, 6.

12 Andrew Baggarly, “A’s Stay Course, Stay Hot: Hudson Shakes off Hit Batters as Miller’s RBIs Fuel Win Over Pirates,” Oakland Tribune, June 11, 2004: SPORTS, 1.

13 Robert Dvorchak, “On the Hot Seat: McClendon Wants Performance, No Excuses from Vogelsong,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 22, 2004: 15.

14 Five months after facing each other in this game, in November 2004, Kendall and Redman were on opposite sides of a Pirates-A’s trade. Seeking relief from a 6-year, $60 million contract they had signed with Kendall after the 2000 season, the Pirates sent him to the A’s for Redman and Arthur Rhodes. Robert Dvorchak, “Kendall’s Exit Frees Cash Flow: GM Ready to Spend,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 28, 2004: D-1.

15 ESPN SportsCenter, “2004 MLB Highlights June 12,” YouTube video (SW561), 8:55, accessed December 15, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdeB5XOEAuo. It was the first of six two-homer games in Byrnes’ 11-season major-league career, including three in 2004.

16 The A’s had acquired Kotsay in a 2003-04 offseason trade that sent Ramón Hernández and Terence Long to the San Diego Padres. Kotsay, who appeared in more than 1,900 major-league games in 17 seasons with seven teams, returned to Oakland to manage the A’s in 2022. Josh Suchon, “Beane Looks Ahead: A’s, Padres Finally Complete Kotsay Deal,” Oakland Tribune, November 27, 2003: SPORTS, 1.

17 Fifteen days earlier, on May 28, Mackowiak’s son was born on the morning of a Pirates-Chicago Cubs doubleheader in Pittsburgh. Mackowiak hit a walk-off grand slam in the doubleheader’s first game and a game-tying ninth-inning homer in the nightcap. He added a three-run homer and five RBIs in the next day’s game. Chuck Finder, “Baby Boom: New Dad Mackowiak Slams Cubs,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 29, 2004: B-1; Robert Dvorchak, “Mackowiak Whacks Cubs Again,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 30, 2004: D-1; Ron Cook, “Special Night Hits Home,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 30, 2004: D-1.

18 The Pirates promoted Mateo after terminating the contract of veteran outfielder Raúl Mondesí, an offseason free-agent signing who had left the team for his home in the Dominican Republic in May. Robert Dvorchak, “Mondesi Deal Terminated: Pirates Feel It’s Time to Move Forward Without Troubled OF,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 20, 2004: C-1.

19 Newspaper coverage reported that the pitch was 69 MPH. Kevin Yamamura, “A’s Lengthen Win Streak to 7 Games: Pittsburgh Reliever Salomon Torres Is Ejected After Throwing Two Errant Pitches,” Sacramento Bee, June 13, 2004: C8.

20 Glenn Reeves, “A’s Rally, Brush Off Pirates: Seventh Straight Win Comes After Heated, Run-Filled Late Innings,” Oakland Tribune, June 13, 2004: SPORTS, 1.

21 Robert Dvorchak, “Late Doomers: Oakland Rallies Twice for 7th Consecutive Win,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 13, 2004: D-1.

22 Torres had pitched two innings in the Pirates’ 10-inning loss to the Texas Rangers on June 7, the most recent time Pittsburgh had led or been tied in the eighth inning or later. The Pirates and Rangers were rained out in both of the next two days, and Texas swept a doubleheader on June 10.

23 Chris Haft, “A’s Outslug Pirates 12-11: Oakland’s Win Streak Hits 7,” San Jose Mercury News, June 13, 2004: 1C.

24 Reeves, “A’s Rally, Brush Off Pirates.”

25 Mark Ellis, Oakland’s starting second baseman since midway through the 2002 season, was sidelined for all of 2004 after tearing the labrum in his right shoulder during spring training. The 28-year-old Scutaro, who had been acquired off waivers from the New York Mets during the 2003-04 offseason, was the ’04 A’s most frequent option at second, starting 106 games. Monte Poole, “A’s Fans Learning to Say Scutaro,” Oakland Tribune, April 11, 2004: SPORTS, 14; David Schoen, “Ellis Gone for Season with Injury to Shoulder,” Oakland Tribune, April 11, 2004: SPORTS, 14.

26 The 39-year-old McLemore was filling in for Eric Chávez at third base. Chávez broke his right hand when Dámaso Marté of the Chicago White Sox hit him with a pitch on June 1 and did not return to action until July 9. Josh Suchon, “Bad Break Puts Chavez on Sidelines: Third Baseman out Six Weeks with Broken Hand,” Oakland Tribune, June 3, 2004: SPORTS, 1; Josh Suchon, “Chavez Back, But A’s Still on the Ropes: Dotel Blows Two-Run Lead in Ninth for Oakland’s Fourth Straight Loss,” Oakland Tribune, July 10, 2004: SPORTS,1.

27 Major League Baseball suspended Torres for four games and fined him $1,700. McClendon, who had been suspended twice earlier in the season for disciplinary incidents, was suspended for one game. Robert Dvorchak, “Torres Suspended for Four Games: Pitcher Also Fined $1,700 for Incident in Oakland: McClendon Penalized for One Game,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 19, 2004: D-6.

28 Reeves, “A’s Rally, Brush Off Pirates.”

29 Rick Hurd, “A Spark Is All the A’s Need: Pitches Behind Miller’s Back Fire up Oakland, Which Wins Again,” Contra Costa (California) Times, June 12, 2004: B1.

30 Josh Suchon, “A’s Keep Swinging Hot Bats: Oakland Pounds 18 More Hits to Finish 11-1 Homestand,” Oakland Tribune, June 14, 2004: SPORTS, 1.

31 Pittsburgh’s streak of losing seasons eventually stretched to 20, a record in North American professional sports, before the Pirates finished 94-68 in 2013.

32 Kent Tekulve also appeared in 94 games for the 1979 Pirates.