Friday night’s game between the Giants and Padres at Oracle Park got co-opted by a group of rowdy fans in the left field bleachers.
Stoppages in the middle of the third inning and during the seventh happened when fans threw objects onto the field, directed at Padres outfielder Jurickson Profar.
The first interruption came from fans throwing two baseballs back on to the field. He told reporters postgame that he’d thrown a ball into the stands after warming up, and then a fan chucked it back — sailing it near his head.
“It’s very frustrating,” Profar said via The San Diego Union-Tribune “You can talk whatever you want. You pay to watch a game, you can talk. These guys are the worst in the league. You can talk. But when you try to throw stuff, that’s different.”
The Giants didn’t provide additional security in left field until after Profar talked to the clubhouse security personell, according to the Union-Tribune.
Fans in the stands detailed the situation on social media, with some saying Profar instigated by throwing the warmup ball too hard. That explanation is unconfirmed.
Fans taunted Profar with boos every time he came up to bat for the rest of the game. They also threw beer bottles at him in the seventh, leading to another brief delay.
“Whenever things are being thrown on the field, it’s putting us in harm’s way, and that’s just not called for,” Padres star Manny Machado said. “I think we go out there with respect and we go out there to give people a show, and I think we need to get treated with a little bit more respect. We could get hurt.”
Machado, who’s leading the National League in batting average and on-base percentage, added that he thinks the Giants fans “are better than that.”
“We go out there to give them a show and to perform at the highest level,” Machado said. “The Giants organization does the same thing as well. They put a good team out there to go out there and perform every single night. I think we need a little bit more protection as players. Just be better. That’s all we ask for.”
