After going viral Tuesday, Rodolfo Castro involved in another peculiar situation

It was another interesting night at the office for Rodolfo Castro.

Tuesday evening, shortly after being called up from Triple-A Indianapolis, Castro was at the center of a now-viral moment when he accidentally left his cell phone in his pocket while running the bases at Chase Field.

The Pittsburgh Pirates infielder slid headfirst into third base during the fourth inning of Tuesday’s loss to Arizona, and as he dove, his phone popped clearly out of his pocket and onto the field.

Castro quickly retrieved it, with Pirates manager Derek Shelton saying during the AT&T SportsNet postgame show that night that “there was no intent to do anything. He made a mistake and kept his phone in the pocket.”

The innocence of Castro’s gaffe did not prevent it from going viral, with The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reporting that the MLB is currently taking a look into the matter, which technically constitutes a violation of league rules that prohibits any electronic devices, save for MLB-approved iPads, on the field or in the dugout during games.

On Wednesday, the Pirates beat the Diamondbacks, 6-4, with Castro looking well on track to redeem himself from the previous night’s blunder.

After all, Castro went 2 for 4 with a run scored in the win, hitting a two-out triple in the sixth inning that led to the Pirates scoring a pair of key runs.

“Like we talked about, he made a mistake, but good at-bats today, he played good defense, he drove the ball, ran the bases well, so, it’s nice to see,” Shelton said.

However, in the top of the ninth inning, the 23-year-old was involved in another peculiar situation.

Reliever Wil Crowe had run into trouble, loading the bases with no outs following back-to-back singles to Daulton Varsho and Emmanuel Rivera, with Seth Beer taking a four-pitch walk.

Sergio Alcantara replaced Beer at first to pinch-run, bringing Carson Kelly to the plate.

Kelly hit a sharp grounder to Ke’Bryan Hayes that scored Varsho but should have been a routine 5-4-3 double play.

Hayes threw to second, covered by Castro, and that’s where things got confusing.

Had Castro simply thrown the ball to Michael Chavis at first, an easy double play would have been completed without complication.

But Castro instead threw the ball back to third base, which was covered by Kevin Newman.

Newman then pursued Rivera back to second, was occupied by Alcantara, who was already out on the throw from Hayes to Castro, as called by second base umpire Adam Hamari.

When Rivera got back to second base and Newman tagged him, Hamari proceeded to rule him out and Alcantara safe, prompting a review and challenge by the Diamondbacks.

Slow-motion replay revealed that Newman had tagged Rivera with the latter’s feet off of second base, good for a double play, once Alcantara was determined to have already been out.

Following all of that, with two men out and a runner on first, Shelton inserted Eric Stout into the game to close things out and he did, earning his first career save in the process.

“Just a ball (Castro) caught and went backside when we should have thrown the ball to first,” Shelton said after Wednesday’s game. “…We’ve just got to turn the double play there.

“When we have young kids, we’re going to do things – I’m pretty sure we won’t do that again – but it was nice for ‘Rudy,’ he had a really nice day.”