Rockies’ Goodman denies saying anything to umpire about Cardinals pitcher’s cap

DENVER — Cap-gate in the Rockies-Cardinals series didn’t die down Saturday.

Friday night, the story was the ejection of Cardinals manager Oli Marmol for arguing after the instruction from umpire Doug Eddings to straighten his cap — which eventually boiled over to St. Louis’ subsequent reliever, Justin Bruihl, being assessed a pitch-timer violation as Marmol and Eddings argued.

But on Saturday, the focus was on catcher Hunter Goodman — and a report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that quoted Eddings as claiming the Rockies’ All-Star catcher asked him about the tilt of Rincon’s cap.

“The batter said, ‘Hey, can he wear his hat like that?’” Eddings was quoted by the Post-Dispatch as saying after Friday’s game. “I really didn’t know. It was really, really crooked. So I asked the [St. Louis] catcher [Leo Bernal] to tell him to straighten his hat out and the pitcher did.”

Prior to Saturday night’s game, Goodman denied making the comment.

“I never once mentioned the hat,” Goodman told media in the clubhouse Saturday afternoon. “It doesn’t matter who’s pitching. I don’t care how they wear the hat. I’m trying to find out where the ball is coming out, and I’m trying to worry about what I’m doing in the box. I’m not worried about how his hat looks.

“ … There are a lot of guys who have had their hat crooked or however. Honestly, before today, when I went back and looked, I didn’t even notice the hat was messed up or looked like that when I was hitting. Anyways, I don’t pay attention to that stuff.”

Added Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer after Saturday night’s 10-7 series-squaring win, “‘Goody’ was very clear to me today that he said nothing about a guy’s hat — the whole hat saga, he said nothing, and you trust your player.”

So, before Saturday’s game, Schaeffer went onto the field to talk with Eddings — to “[make] sure Dougie wasn’t disrespecting ‘Goody,'” Schaeffer said.

“And if he was, I was gonna go there.”

But as Schaeffer said in the Rockies interview room after the game, Eddings denied mentioning Goodman in his interview.

“[Eddings] told me he didn’t say anything, so it must have been a misspeak in the media or something must have happened. I don’t know,” Schaeffer said.

“But if it’s true, that ain’t good.”

Goodman went 1-for-5 with a 2-RBI single on Saturday night. Rincon entered the game in the fifth inning and struggled again, allowing four earned runs to the Rockies on a walk, two hits and a hit batter.

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