PHILADELPHIA -- Nick Castellanos sensed trouble.

He has played enough baseball to know when a pitcher might throw at a batter intentionally. He figured he might be next. He had just watched Rays right-hander Edwin Uceta implode in the Phillies¡¯ 9-4 victory on Tuesday night at Citizens Bank Park. Uceta surrendered a home run, two doubles and a single in the eighth inning to turn a close game into a rout. Uceta¡¯s ERA jumped from 0.75 to 1.49.

On Wednesday afternoon, Uceta received a three-game suspension and a fine, and Rays manager Kevin Cash was handed a one-game suspension and a fine.

Castellanos said he had an ¡°overwhelming sense that I was about to get drilled.¡± So, he got into the batter¡¯s box and he decided not to swing. He wanted to see if the pitch would be around the plate.

His instincts served him well. Castellanos took a 96.2 mph fastball off his left hip, which led to the benches and bullpens emptying. It was one of the fastest pitches of Uceta¡¯s career -- and it was the first batter he has hit this season.

Incredibly, Uceta called the pitch a changeup. Not surprisingly, he said he did not hit Castellanos intentionally.

¡°I wasn¡¯t trying to do it on purpose,¡± Uceta said via a team interpreter.

Cash, however, said Uceta ¡°probably lost his composure a little bit.¡±

¡°Yeah, I just told him that it was bull [crap],¡± Castellanos said. ¡°I mean, you¡¯re throwing a baseball over 90 mph. You¡¯re frustrated and you¡¯re going to throw at somebody? You know? That¡¯s like my 2-year-old throwing a fit because I take away his dessert before he¡¯s finished.¡±

Has Castellanos actually done that?

¡°Of course,¡± he said, referring to his youngest son. ¡°Otto is only allowed so much cake and ice cream.¡±

Castellanos dropped his bat, gestured toward Uceta and moved toward the mound almost immediately. Home-plate umpire John Libka quickly got in his way. Bryce Harper, who was on second base at the time, took off his helmet and stormed toward Uceta.

Harper shouted at him several times, trying to get his attention. He reached the mound before a couple of Rays infielders intercepted him.

Uceta, who was later ejected, never turned to look at Harper.

¡°I don¡¯t want to be a loser and come up behind him,¡± Harper said. ¡°If he¡¯s going to turn around, then all right, let¡¯s go. But he never turned around, so I didn¡¯t want to ¡­ I¡¯ll say loser. I didn¡¯t want to be a loser. There¡¯s another word I want to use, but I won¡¯t. But I didn¡¯t want to be a loser and come up behind him. That wouldn¡¯t have been right.¡±

Uceta said he just kept watching Castellanos to see what he might do.

¡°I didn¡¯t realize he was getting that close to me,¡± Uceta said of Harper. ¡°I did, obviously, see that he was close to me, but when everything was happening, I didn¡¯t realize how close he was because I was just worried about staying away.¡±

Benches and bullpens had fully emptied by that point. No punches were thrown, although there could be fines.

¡°I mean, it¡¯s not a game that we play, man,¡± Harper said. ¡°It shouldn¡¯t be. Guys throw too hard nowadays. You¡¯re getting mad because a guy hits a homer off you or you blow the lead, walk the guy and come out of the game. I mean, what are you going to do? The situation really fired me up. It upset me. It¡¯s not something that you should accept as Major League Baseball.¡±

Harper knows what errant pitches can do. He took a 96.9 mph fastball to the face in St. Louis on April 28, 2021. He broke his left thumb on an errant pitch on June 25, 2022, in San Diego.

The Phillies can¡¯t afford to lose a player to another bad pitch, not for any amount of time.

Not now.

¡°We¡¯re in a race right now,¡± Harper said. ¡°We¡¯re doing our thing. We¡¯re trying to get into the postseason. A guy wants to drill him. It¡¯s not right.¡±

The win pushed the Phillies' lead in the NL East to eight games over the Braves and Mets with 17 to play. Philadelphia also moved one game ahead of the Dodgers for the best record in the NL.

Harper was asked if this is something that could bring an already tight group of players closer together.

¡°As a team, I don¡¯t think we really need moments like that because we [already] are that type of team,¡± he said. ¡°Any time we have anything to do -- if we¡¯re going to dinner, if we¡¯re hanging out, if we¡¯re hanging out in here watching football or doing whatever we do -- we¡¯re a very close-knit team. When something like that happens, I think all of us just get upset because it¡¯s not right.¡±