Editor's Note: The above video is from Oct. 4, 2015.
More than two months after taking a Jordan Lyles' fastball to the face, Ryan Vogelsong is close to making his return to the Pirates.
But the backstory behind the incident took a strange turn over the weekend: Lyles didn't contact Vogelsong right after the hit-by-pitch occurred.
In an interview with Fox Sports on Sunday, Vogelsong said that Lyles finally reached out to him on Saturday. Needless to say, the Pirates' pitcher wasn't happy it took the Rockies pitcher so long.
"The fact that he's calling me now means zero to me," Vogelsong told Ken Rosenthal.
"He didn't reach out to me. I understand when we're on the field, it's you vs. me, you do what you have to do to win a ballgame. But when it's over with, at the end of the day I feel like as a major-league baseball player, we are all a big fraternity, part of this big family. There are only so many guys in the world who get to do what we do," Vogelsong said.
Vogelsong said that if the roles had been reverse, he would have made sure to reach out to the injured player.
"I know if I was the guy pitching on the mound and drilled someone in the face ... it could have ended my career. It could have blinded me. I could have never been able to be see out of my left eye again/ Even worse, it actually could have killed me, if it would have hit me in a little different spot. I think that deserves a text message, or a phone call, or something," Vogelsong said.
Vogelsong's comments were relayed to Lyles, who admitted he wasn't sure how to handle to situation. Lyles told Fox Sports that he tried to contact Vogelsong through the Rockies' athletic trainers, but apparently the message never got through.
"I just went that route. I didn't know exactly what the protocol was. To be honest, I didn't want to try to contact him and have him tell me to get lost," Lyles said.
According to the Fox Sports story, Lyles called and left a voicemail for Vogelsong on Saturday only after the publication sent Voeglsong's comments to the Rockies and the pitcher.
Vogelsong underwent surgery on June 2 to repair multiple facial fractures sustain in the May 23 hit-by-pitch.
In three minor league rehab starts in July, Vogelsong has allowed five earned runs in 15 innings pitched.
