Reds’ Lucas Sims Won’t Apologize For Refusing To Throw A Pitch in The Pouring Rain

Cincinnati Reds reliever Lucas Sims came into the game against the Diamondbacks yesterday into a complete mess. After a previous delay, the rain started to pick up again. Sims suffered from location issues (presumably because of the damp ball), and decided that he would not throw a pitch until they delayed the game again.

As the home plate umpire kept throwing Lucas Sims new baseballs, the reliever just continued to toss them aside.

Lucas Sims wanted nothing to do with pitching in the freezing rain pic.twitter.com/GUY36Ql8va

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After the game, Lucas Sims talked about how he felt the conditions made for a dangerous game.

“There were a lot of safety issues,” Sims said via Cincinnati.com. “I was concerned about me slipping or something going wrong with the ball. And also my competitors too. If I have no clue where the freaking ball is going, I don’t know the last time I hit a right-hander with a slider.”

Sims also explained why he threw every ball given to him back to the dugout.

“Every single one of them was soaking wet,” Sims said. “There was no reason we should have been playing. I thought for safety reasons there was no way I was going to throw any of those baseballs.”

When the game resumed later in the night, Lucas Sims came back out to the mound and got out of the bases-loaded jam by inducing a pop-up followed by a fly-out.

Unfortunately, the Reds offense couldn’t mount a rally, and the team ended up losing to the D-Backs 8-5. Lucas Sims still thinks the freezing rain played a part in the outcome.

“It felt like a lot of external factors played into that,” Sims said. “I felt like I had two guys yesterday that I felt very confident in getting out.”

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