Rays Report: Wait and see on Percival

The exchange between Troy Percival and Joe Maddon in the ninth inning tonight certainly looked ugly—it wasn’t difficult for even the most inexperienced of lip-readers to pick out the profanity—but the closer said after the game, a beer in his hand, that he was just blowing off steam.

“It had nothing to do with Joe. I knew Joe was doing the right thing,” said Percival. “At the time I was just frustrated about the ring shot, I was frustrated that my leg just popped again for the 12th time and I just needed to yell at somebody and he was there.

“I hate coming off the mound in the middle of the inning. It’s just not something I’ve ever done, I don’t like doing it and it’s embarrassing, but Joe did the right thing. Fortunately, Joe knows me better than any coach can possibly know me and he saw it in my eyes that there wasn’t any way.”

So, just to clarify, Percival wasn’t arguing to stay in the game?

“He knew it when he saw the first [warm-up] pitch, he said, ‘Percy, that’s not going to work,’ and I said, ‘Let me try one more,’” Percival said. “So I tried to hide it and fake it a little bit on the next one and he goes, ‘Percy, it’s not going to work.’

Oh, really?