detroit >> Throughout his struggles in his first year as the Detroit Tigers’ closer, Joe Nathan has maintained that he’s his own harshest critic.
That didn’t stop his frustration from boiling over a little bit when 41,000 critics at Comerica Park Wednesday night got on him after a pair of leadoff walks, booing lustily.
He answered with a derogatory gesture toward the crowd after getting the final out – an action which he regretted soon thereafter and apologized for Thursday morning.
“It was a lot of frustration on the fans’ part, right from the first pitch. Right away, right out of the chute. I think I threw Ball One, and everything started,” Nathan said.
“It was just frustration. Hearing it the whole inning just got the better of me. My frustrations came out. Obviously it happened. … Just want to put it behind us. I understand it was bad on both parts. Frustration came out on both sides.
“I apologize to the fans, I apologize to my kids, and I will be better.”
Nathan walked the first two batters he faced in Wednesday’s game, then got a pop-up and a double play to end the game. As he headed toward catcher Alex Avila to shake hands, he put his hand under his chin and flicked it toward the crowd. After shaking Avila’s hand, he turned and did the same motion with his glove.
“Well, I mean, clearly an inappropriate gesture,” manager Brad Ausmus said after Thursday’s game. “I talked to Joe. He’s completely embarrassed by it. He’s never done anything like that before, and he feels awful. He knows it was a mistake. And I think frankly, he hopes he can go out there, and pitch the way he has in past seasons, and kind of earn the fans’ trust back.”
Call the gesture what you will – derogatory, vulgar, profane, rude, obscene – it’s certainly not an invitation to tea and crumpets.
It was frustration boiling over.
“It’s something that I’ve never been a part of, never have done, and never will do again,” Nathan said, after opening with a joke about his beard being itchy. “I was frustrated. Fans obviously were frustrated. I think for myself, I would apologize for that.”
As much as anything, Nathan felt he’d let down his two kids, 9-year-old Cole and 7-year-old Riley.
“I have two kids and I need to be a better example for them. Thank God they’re still young enough that they won’t know about this. I do know and I do need to be better for that,” he said. “This is something that’s never happened to me and I feel bad for that and want to be a better person for that and better leader for my kids and someone they can look up to. So I apologize to them as well.”
Teammate Victor Martinez talked at length after Tuesday’s game about some of what he felt was fan negativity. But neither he nor Nathan ever disputed the fans’ rights to boo.
“It’s nice to come home and know we have that fan base, that support. Especially when you’re on the road, and have a tough stretch, it’s good to come home and have some cheers, as opposed to the other side, when we’re on the road,” Nathan said.
“Do we want that? Absolutely. Does it mean they can’t boo us? No. It’s their right to do whatever they want, and how they feel. And if they’re frustrated, then do that.
“I let my frustrations get the better of me, and that’s what I’m apologizing for.”
And he also acknowledged that heightened expectations for the Tigers play a role as well. Heightened, but not unfairly high.
“Unfair? No. We know what we expect. We expect that from us as well. We know we have talent in here. We go through stretches where we aren’t playing as well as we’d like to. I think this kind of coincided with how we’ve been playing the last few weeks, too,” he said.
“The thing is, I don’t feel like I have been struggling lately. I think it’s gone pretty well. Sometimes when you walk a guy and frustration comes out on their end, trust me, I’m just as frustrated. I’m not out there trying to walk guys or trying to do this. I’m trying to win games, period. I don’t care how it gets done.
“Like I said, we’re on the same page. It’s just one of those things right now where I think fans just have a short leash on how they want me to go out and pitch. I think they have a perception of how it should go and if it doesn’t go exactly that way, they get frustrated. Understandable. So like I said, we both want to win, we both want to get to the same goal and that’s to get to the World Series. That’s what we’re trying to do here. So I do understand their frustrations and I apologize for my actions.”
