Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina tries to teach Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo some manners [Video]

It’s not nice to call somebody a bad name. It’s even worse to do it twice.

St. Louis catcher Yadier Molina had to remind Arizona manager Torey Lovullo of that in an incident that led to both benches clearing during the Diamondbacks’ 4-1 win over the Cardinals on Sunday afternoon.

Lovullo left the dugout following a called third strike on A.J. Pollock during the second inning, arguing that Molina, an eight-time All Star, was getting special treatment when it came to the calling of strikes. In the process, Lovullo happened to use a vulgar word to describe Molina, and apparently did so twice.

“You can’t talk to a player like that,” Molina said after the game. “Or an umpire — you can’t talk to anybody like that. You’ve got to be a professional and he wasn’t a professional at all.”

Upon hearing Lovullo’s choice of words at the plate, Molina lunged after the opposing manager and had to be restrained by umpire Tim Timmons.

“When he called me a … twice, I reacted the way I reacted,” Molina said. “I mean, if you’re going to call a … to a guy, you’ve got to be ready to fight.”

Timmons said after the game that any contact Molina made with him during the scuffle “was just incidental.”

Lovullo later expressed regret over what he said at the plate.

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“The first thing I want to say is I have the utmost respect for Yadier Molina. He’s one of the best catchers the game’s ever seen,” said Lovullo, who was ejected for leaving the dugout to argue balls and strikes.

“I just was going out there to talk about something with the umpire and was referencing something and used a poor choice of words and [Molina] took offense to it. I wish I could take back what I said but it really wasn’t really directed at him.”

charles.schilken@latimes.com

Twitter: @chewkiii