SEATTLE - Caleb Ferguson didn’t wait long to address the moment that put him in the spotlight Monday night.
The Reds reliever apologized Tuesday for his profane reaction toward second base umpire Bill Miller during Cincinnati’s 8-0 loss to the Seattle Mariners, calling it “a very unprofessional thing on my part.”
“I know these things happen in the game, but I don’t like that I was kind of the centerpiece of what was going on,” Ferguson said.
He said he planned to find Miller before Tuesday’s game and apologize face-to-face, though he had not spoken with the umpire yet.
“(I’m) going to seek Bill out - or try to at some point - and definitely make it right with him,” Ferguson said. “Very unprofessional on my part.
So, nothing you can do with it now. I just have to move on.
I know Bill is doing his best not to be in the way in that situation, so I’ve got to be better on my part, too.”
The outburst came in the seventh inning after Reds second baseman Edwin Arroyo collided with Miller while trying to field a grounder by Victor Robles. Ferguson’s expletive-filled reaction was caught on the Mariners’ broadcast, though Ferguson said he didn’t realize it had been captured until he got back to the team hotel.
Asked about it Monday night, he said, “You’ve got to ask Bill.”
The inning had already gone sideways for Ferguson before the collision. He entered with the bases loaded and gave up a grand slam to Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh on his first pitch. Josh Naylor followed with a single on a ball Ferguson deflected, and Cincinnati then failed to turn an inning-ending double play on a fielder’s choice by Cole Young, keeping the frame alive.
With two outs and two on, Robles hit a grounder up the middle. Arroyo crossed the bag to field it but ran into Miller, and the ball rolled into center field for a single. Ferguson then struck out Luke Raley to end the inning, and the broadcast showed him mouthing an expletive while staring directly at Miller, who did not react.
“It felt like a 1-0 game quickly turned into - I don’t know what it was when I came out of the game,” Ferguson said. “A 7-0 game.
It felt like it happened very, very quick. But the nature of baseball is that we’ve got another one today.
The best thing we can do is to go win this one today.”
Ferguson, 30, is in his first season with Cincinnati after signing a one-year deal last December. He has appeared in 21 games for the Reds and owns a 3.98 ERA over 20 1/3 innings. Raleigh’s homer was the third Ferguson has allowed this season.
In Other News...
Angels May Be Weighing A Move Fans Never Wanted To Hear
The Angels are headed toward the trade deadline in seller mode, but the bigger question may be how far they are willing to go. Interim general manager John Mozeliak is still sorting through player values and trying to gauge how much owner Arte Moreno is open to moving, which leaves the club in a familiar spot: talking about flexibility while knowing the real decisions might not come until later.
Mozeliak has already suggested the most significant moves could wait until the offseason, and that makes the next few weeks feel more like a test of the market than a full teardown. One name to watch is shortstop Zach Neto, who has drawn attention as a valuable trade piece, but there is still plenty of uncertainty about whether the Angels will actually part with him or keep him as part of whatever comes next. [Read more 🡒]
Angels Fired Someone After Crossing A Line Against The Rockies
A quiet offseason personnel move turned into a much bigger story for the Angels after Major League Baseball flagged a violation tied to a June series against the Rockies. The club moved quickly once the issue was brought to its attention, cutting ties with a scout and trying to contain the fallout before it spread beyond a one-off breach of protocol.
Both teams came away believing the scout acted on his own, which is a big reason the Angels are not facing league punishment. Still, the episode left the organization doing damage control with Colorado, and then-general manager Perry Minasian apologized to the Rockies front office as the club worked to put the matter behind it. [Read more 🡒]
Angels Fans Suddenly Have A Zach Neto Question They Never Expected
Zach Neto has become the kind of name Angels fans did not expect to see in trade chatter this early, but ESPN analysts Kiley McDaniel and Jeff Passan have put the shortstop on a list of possible fits for a handful of contenders. Atlanta is among the teams mentioned, with Boston also in the mix, and the broader field reportedly includes Toronto, Minnesota, Tampa Bay and the Yankees, which is enough to make this feel less like idle speculation and more like a real winter-to-summer storyline taking shape.
The twist for Los Angeles is that Neto is still under club control through 2029 and has not even reached arbitration yet, so any talk of a move is coming well before the Angels would normally have to confront it. ESPNs estimate gives him a 30% chance of being traded, but for now the bigger question is whether this is just deadline noise aimed at a 2026 decision point or the first sign that a much more surprising conversation is starting to build. [Read more 🡒]