The roof was open at Chase Field on Thursday night when the Arizona Diamondbacks hosted the San Francisco Giants, but Giants closer Santiago Casilla blew his top. Charged with protecting a two run lead in the ninth inning, Casilla recorded two outs while managing to load the bases. Left hand hitting Jake Lamb was the next batter. Lamb had torched Giant’s pitching this year, hitting almost .500. In fact he had homered off Casilla back in April to tie a game and send it into extra innings. Just the day, before Casilla had given up another ninth inning game tying home run to a left handed hitter. All that to say, this was not a difficult decision for the Giant’s skipper Bruce Bochy. He made the call to bring in left hand specialist Javier Lopez, who record retired Lamb on a ground ball to preserve the victory.

There is little need to argue the baseball wisdom of this move. You’d have to search in an alternate universe to find another take – check that – right there on the mound Santiago Casilla demonstratively registered his disagreement. As Andy Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury put it in his blog, “(Casilla) stormed off toward the dugout as Bochy approached the mound, then flapped his arms and did an about-face when Bochy snapped at him. http://tinyurl.com/gtrkz7e Baseball protocol is that when the manager pulls a pitcher, said pitcher waits for manager and hands him the ball. Facial displeasure is permitted; all other emotions are stuffed. Suffice to say that Casilla with his antics violated that code and in baseball terms “showed up” his manager.

After the game he remained unrepentant. To Bochy’s credit he did not throw gasoline on the fire. “He didn’t want to come out,” Bochy said. “You want (that) but he probably got a little too emotional.” The baseball news cycle took over. Sports talk radio had a juicy story for Friday morning and then it was over by Friday afternoon. Casilla made sure of that. “I just apologized for my outburst from yesterday,” he said through an interpreter. “It’s something that happened. I don’t know what made me do it. A lot of times you just let your emotions get the best of you. Sometimes you say things without realizing it. And then, having thought about it overnight, I realized that I have to respect my manager.”

Friday night Casilla faced the final two batters, striking out both of them to save a 3-1 win for Jeff Samardzija and the Giants. Casilla has a record he can be proud of, including a post season ERA of 0.95. Casilla the ballplayer has walked on to the field to pitch in hundreds of pressure packed games. As a man, he has done nothing more important than walking into his manager’s office on Friday. Casilla saved the game that night; he saved much more Friday afternoon.