Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte broke down in tears on the field Tuesday night after a heckler allegedly made comments about his late mother.
Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said after the 4-1 road win over the White Sox that the fan made the purported remarks during Marte’s at-bat in the top of the seventh inning.
Lovullo put his arm around Marte and consoled him while on the field to make a pitching change in the bottom of the inning, and Marte continued to wipe away tears during the rest of the frame.
The fan was ejected from the game, a Diamondbacks spokesperson told the Arizona Republic.
Marte’s mother, Elpidia Valdez, died in a car accident in the Dominican Republic in 2017.
The tragedy happened during Marte’s first season with the Diamondbacks, less than a year after he had been traded to Arizona from the Mariners.
“That can’t happen,” teammate Geraldo Perdomo said of the fan’s alleged actions. “Everybody knows how Ketel is. He’s fun. He plays the game hard. I feel bad for him. I feel mad about it.
“I hope MLB can do something with that guy. I don’t know who it was, but they’ve got to do something. We can’t continue to do that [expletive] here in MLB … he should be banned, for sure. Everybody knows Ketel lost his mom. She was the world to him.”
Lovullo said that when he consoled Marte on the field, he told him: “I love you and I’m with you and we’re all together and you’re not alone. No matter what happens, no matter what was said or what you heard, that guy is an idiot. It shouldn’t have an impact on you.”
The manager, who has coached Marte in each of his nine seasons in Arizona, said he heard the comments himself.
“I looked right at him when I heard,” Lovullo said. “I looked right at him and he looked at the person, as well. He put his head down and I could tell it had an immediate impact on him, for sure.”
He added: “I just reacted as a dad would when I went out to change pitchers. I could see he was sobbing. It hurt.”
Marte, a two-time All-Star, went 2-for-4 with a homer to help the Diamondbacks improve to 41-38.