Puig, Bell tossed on frustrating night in Anaheim

ANAHEIM -- A tough night for the Reds saw frustrations boil over with a couple of sixth-inning ejections.

In one of several incidents notable for the wrong reasons, Yasiel Puig and manager David Bell each got tossed by home plate umpire Kerwin Danley for arguing balls and strikes in the Reds’ 5-1 loss to the Angels on Tuesday. Puig’s ejection was his second of the season, while Bell’s was his fifth.

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“I’d rather not. It’s all on video,” Bell said when asked if Danley’s call to eject Puig was too hasty. “I know you’re not allowed to argue balls and strikes.”

Puig was unavailable to comment on the ejection postgame, but Bell didn’t believe his right fielder did anything out of line, including making contact with Danley.

“Watching the video, I didn’t see anything like that,” said Bell. “But yeah, that’s why I went out -- I went out to make sure I could get in between the two of them and find out what happened. I’m not sure if I accomplished either one.”

All in all, it was a strange, somewhat exasperating night for the Reds, filled with bad luck and mental lapses. The high point of the game came early, when Joey Votto hit a one-out solo shot into the center-field bushes in the first.

That would be all the Reds could muster, as baserunning gaffes quashed a couple other potential rallies. One of those came in that same inning, as a walk and two hits gave Cincinnati the chance for more, but Eugenio Suarez ended up out in a rundown between third and home.

In the bottom half of the frame, Orange County, Calif., native Tyler Mahle’s homecoming start got off to an inauspicious opening as he allowed an inside-the-park home run to the first batter he saw. Tommy La Stella drove a 3-1 fastball off the top of the center-field wall, and the ball bounced away from center fielder Nick Senzel, allowing La Stella to come all the way home.

José Peraza responded with second-inning leadoff single, but that was quickly mitigated when he wandered too far off first base and got picked off by Angels starter Andrew Heaney.

“You never want to make mistakes or anything like that,” said Bell. “It’s really important to us, how we run the bases. For the most part, we’ve been good, but we’re trying to find ways to always get better and learn from that. So we’re looking forward to coming back tomorrow, bouncing back from this one.”

Peraza, who started the game at second base, would find himself in trouble once again when defensive shuffling moved him to left field following Puig’s ejection. With one out in the seventh and a runner on second, Pereza tracked down a Shohei Ohtani fly ball at the wall. Evidently thinking it was the third out, Peraza did not throw the ball back into the infield, and pinch-runner Wilfredo Tovar came in to score from second.

“That’s what it looked like,” Bell said, when asked if Peraza thought there were two outs in the inning. “I was inside, I wasn’t in the dugout after the ejection, but that’s what it looked like.”

The Reds got a pair of ninth-inning hits, but the comeback attempt fell short with runners stranded at second and third.

Mahle’s hometown return

Mahle grew up in Newport Beach, Calif., about 16 miles southwest of Angel Stadium. And though Tuesday was his first time pitching there as a Major Leaguer, he’d been there plenty of times as a kid.

“I came to a few games, yeah,” said Mahle, who estimated 40-50 friends and family members came out to see him pitch tonight. “Played here in high school for about two months -- like, every Wednesday we had a game here. So I was here, yeah, quite a bit.”

The start didn’t go quite as Mahle would’ve hoped, as he allowed four runs on six hits and two walks over five innings. Three of the runs came on a Luis Rengifo homer in the second. Mahle settled in after that, though, to pitch three scoreless innings.

“He got stronger, it looked like, as he went,” said Bell. “Other than the one pitch, he really pitched a good game. And what was impressive is, to give up the three-run homer like that early in the game, to hold ‘em right at four runs right there, that’s all you can ask for. He did a really good job with that. He was determined to keep it right there, and we just weren’t able to carry [him] offensively.”